Dare to be Different
by A Shade of Grey
Summary: An aged Lily Potter II remembers and records the lives of her generation for posterity’s sake. On hiatus.
1. The Start of it All

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own it._

_**Summary:**__ An aged Lily Potter (II) remembers and records the lives of her generation for posterity's sake._

_**A/N:**__ This actually started out as a brief character sketch of Lily Potter II, but somewhere along the line it lost its brevity. I'm not sure how long the story will be, since her childhood was intended to be five hundred or so words and turned into over four thousand. I'll hopefully be able to update a couple of times a week, but, with school, it might take longer._

_Also, if anyone's interested in being a beta reader, please PM me._

**Dare to be Different**

**Chapter 1: The Start of it All**

(Childhood)

I've never been one for reminiscing about the past--memories of my childhood rarely come in anything more than fleeting flashes--but now I find it unavoidable. At a hundred a thirty-three years old, I'm the last of my generation still living and just days from my own death; yet, I greet Death as a long lost friend, for Death can reunite me with my loved ones, especially my husband. I ask only that Death waits to take me until I can finish my tale so that we will not be forgotten once our bodies have faded to dust.

Daddy used to do the same thing with us--my brothers and me (and Teddy, if he happened to be there). Tell us stories of his past, I mean. He'd wave us over to a couch or some chairs and tell us to sit down. "I've got another story to tell you, one that you'll love," he'd say, and I'd know that he was right. I always loved Daddy's stories, so full of adventure, humor, excitement, and the occasional romance. He told us nearly everything about his past, and even now I can remember all his stories as clearly as if I've just heard them.

But I'm getting off topic. My earliest memory takes place during the summer when I was either two or three. I remember the yellowing grass and the parched dirt, the warnings on our TV to use water sparingly in light of the drought; I especially remember James, trying to act older than his age, saying to Mummy in a falsely mature voice, "Thank Merlin for the boomstorm tonight." By which he meant "thunderstorm."

My memory of the next few hours fails me, yet--in the funny way that the mind works--I can clearly recall, later that night (at least, I think this happened on the same night; it definitely feels like one memory), waking up to a particularly loud clasp of thunder. Before I could feel even the slightest bit of fear, however, my big brother James was right there next to me. "It's okay, Lily, I'm right here," he told me, pulling aside the covers and getting into the bed next to me. "You're safe now." A wave of calmness washed over me because I knew that nothing could ever hurt me when James, my protector and idol, was there to watch over me. I fell back asleep as quickly as I'd woken up.

James had always had that effect on me, though, right up 'til his dying day.

Albus also provided me with brotherly safety, but his was of a much different sort. He was the brother I could confide absolutely anything in without ever fearing that I might somehow lower myself in his eyes. Even in my lowest moments he'd never make me feel ashamed for my thoughts or feelings. "You're only human," he'd say. " You're bound to think selfish thoughts and make plenty of mistakes." And while, I realize, this doesn't seem terribly optimistic, it did wonders in cheering me up.

His help was much needed when, at the age of six, my best friend died. Her name was Mary Collins and she was a muggle girl who lived down the street from us. Mummy and Daddy had enrolled me in a muggle primary school to learn the basics of life--how to add, subtract, read, write, spell, etc.--when I was four, and Mary was the only girl who'd talk to me. No one else wanted to associate with the "weird" girl who had made "weird" things happen to the boys down the street when they had teased her about her red hair. Mary, however, seemed to care little about what other people said. I only realized after the fact that Mary might've not cared because, with her deadly secret of having leukemia, Mary had more important things to worry about than what her peers said. And through her example, I myself learned to accept people, as she did, based on my own experiences with them and not on what others said.

It was around this time that I turned to drawing because, although flying also took me away from the pain of the real world, I wasn't free to fly as often as I'd like. Drawing, on the other hand, was always open to me. I'd lose myself in the stroke of a brush or a quill against a piece of parchment, passing by hours in which I'd forget about Mary's death, forget about the misery that accompanied it, forget about everything but my drawings. I didn't even mind the fact that I had no talent for drawing--usually, I dropped anything I wasn't good at like a hot potato--because of its therapeutic influence on me.

As much as I wanted to, I couldn't tell anyone about my drawings; if I did tell, then I'd lose the very reason that I'd started to draw in the first place: its seclusion. If I let in anyone from my family, I'd no longer be able to keep out all reminders of my pain, and drawing would no longer be the escape for me that I needed it to be.

I spent nearly a year mourning, feeling guilty every time I so much as smiled, but, by the time I was eight--still young enough to forget even the greatest of setbacks--time had healed this wound as much as it could. I'd always feel a slight ache in my heart whenever I thought about my childhood best friend, but I was able to think less and less about her. Still I drew, however, and still I kept this a secret from my family. They had by then become habits too strong to break.

Teddy, I think, knew about my drawing, though he never made any reference to it. Once, when he wanted me to help him with his flying--even then, I was a natural--and I lazily told him I didn't feel like getting my broomstick, which was all the way upstairs, he went upstairs to get it for me. He took an exceptionally long time getting that broomstick, much longer then the task required, so we didn't get in much time for practice. When we had finished flying and I went to my room to get in some drawing time, I found my pile under the wrong side of my bed. I remember feeling very suspicious at that point, but Teddy revealed nothing. My suspicion increased tenfold the next day when an owl which looked strikingly similar to Teddy's brought me a set of charcoals, but still he said nothing, so I moved on.

I was wary of trying out the charcoals at first because I had only ever used inked quills and watercolor paints. Charcoals, in comparison, seemed so formal and intimidating to me. But, once I taught myself to use them--a difficult feat given my tendency, in the beginning, to accidentally smudge everything I tried to draw--charcoals quickly became my favorite drawing instrument.

Drawing was not, however, my sole hobby. Later that year, after James left home to join Teddy at Hogwarts--which, I'll admit, caused me to have some prolonged tantrums and crying fits--I began to develop my skills as a Keeper. Daddy had once tried, with Uncle Charlie's help, to train me to be a Seeker instead of a Keeper, but it was no use. In some bizarre twist of fate, I'd inherited Uncle Ron's talent--which, oddly enough, neither Rose (who was terrified at the thought of flying) nor Hugo (who was much better suited to being a Chaser) inherited.

"Thank Merlin," Uncle Ron once said to me during one of our training sessions, "that I've got someone to carry out my legacy. Imagine if none of you kids could Keep and someone like McLaggen's brat--" here Uncle Ron habitually glanced to make sure Auntie Hermione wasn't anywhere nearby--"became the Gryffindor Keeper."

I beamed at him and said that I was proud to make him--my very favorite uncle--proud, or something equally as corny, and Uncle Ron's ears turned red as they were wont to do.

"And you know that you're my favorite niece. Have been ever since you were three years old and killed that giant, hairy spider--" and maybe my memory was already failing me, but I could've sworn it was the size of pea, and a small pea at that--"for me. Only," he added after a slight pause, "don't say that to any of your cousins. Your Aunt's always going on about how I'm not supposed to show favoritism."

"'Course I won't tell," I assured him, smiling even wider. I was never very comfortable being praised by those whom I didn't know, but I reveled in the admiration of my family. Anything that differentiated me from the mass of children was fine by me.

Perhaps I had such a strong need to stand out because I had just recently realized that my part-veela cousin, Céline Noelle Weasley, who was the same age as I, was about a thousand times more beautiful than I could ever hope to be. She had long, silvery blonde hair; beautiful, endearing blue eyes; creamy, flawless skin; and just about everything I lacked. And, for a while, I absolutely hated her for this fact. I'm pretty sure she, in return, hated me.

Her hatred was probably more justified than mine, to tell the truth, because I might've, er, "accidentally" knocked over her glass collection when she wouldn't stop annoying me. It was all put right again with a few _Reparo_'s, but Mummy still made me apologize and Céline still glared at me. She knew that my apology was fake and that my accident wasn't really an accident.

Once Al and Rose went to Hogwarts, however, this enmity shifted. I no longer had an Albus to confide in or a Rose to satisfy my need for girl talk. Where the former was concerned, Hugo, already my best friend, filled in well enough--though I could never be as entirely open with him as I was with Albus--but he certainly couldn't help with the latter. For that, I had two options (everyone else was either already at Hogwarts or three years younger than me): Priscilla Pauline Weasley or Céline. Priscilla was always something of a priss, so I extended an olive branch to Céline.

We got along surprisingly well, considering how much we used to fight. Sure, it took a while for us to really warm up to each other, but once we did, we were practically inseparable. And once we were inseparable, it took little time for Céline to grow close to Hugo, making us a nice little camaraderie of three.

Céline was the one who picked out my kitten--my parents' present to me for my tenth birthday--an adorable, black-haired domestic short hair with a dangerous temper. She wanted to name him "Doux," and when I asked why, she grinned and said (imitating her mother's fading French accent), "Because, _mon amie_, 'e eez so sweet-tempered."

"I'm not naming my cat 'Doux,'" I said, laughing. "I need a name I can pronounce."

Hugo grinned. "Well, that rules out everything but 'Cat,' doesn't it?"

"Gee, thanks, Hugo. Good to know you have such confidence in me. How about…" I trailed off thoughtfully. "'Leo?'" Because I would know that I meant Leonardo, as in the famous painter Leonardo da Vinci, whereas Hugo and Céline would think I was referring to the literal meaning of "lion."

Hugo nodded and Céline shrugged. "Not too bad," she conceded. "Not as good as 'Doux,' of course, but it'll have to do."

Leo, as much as I loved him, proved to be a bit of a hassle. He was fine with me, Céline, Hugo, and my parents--all of whom he grew quickly used to--but, with anyone else, his aforementioned temper got the best of him. He was wont to hiss, growl, scratch, bite, etc., especially when some people--i.e. cousin Andrew, the evil spawn of nice Uncle Charlie--refused to leave him alone. I suppose he also didn't mind James or Al, or even Rose when she was over, but he never really _liked_ them; there was a mutual avoidance between them.

"You realize that cat's going to flip out at school and attack everyone? And then they'll all hate us?" Céline once asked me after she had spent the day pretending to watch Hugo and I practice quidditch--though I happen to know for a fact that she was reading one of her corny romance books. She always told me that I'd love them if I just gave them a chance, but I disagreed; I hated reading. I had other, more useful ways to spend my time--and we three were lying in the grass. This had become a habit of ours during that autumn. Lying on the ground and watching the autumn sun set, I mean.

"Who cares if they hate us?" I asked, shrugging as best as I could given my exhaustion. Hugo, when he was trying, could throw apples so _hard_. I probably still have bruises.

"Oh, it's alright for you two, completely oblivious as you are to what other people think. But I happen to _like_ being loved. In fact," she continued, "there's nothing that I enjoy more than it."

"Liar." Hugo rolled onto his side and poked Céline. "You wouldn't be hanging out with us losers unless you liked being a loser yourself. Besides, you're the nerd, not us."

"If by nerd you mean someone with any degree of competence whatsoever, then, yes, I'm the nerd," said Céline, poking Hugo back.

"Ha, she just admitted she's a nerd," Hugo said to me triumphantly, grinning.

"You realize you'll never live this down, don't you?" I didn't need to look at Céline to know she was rolling her eyes at our immaturity.

I loved moments like these, moments in which I felt as if nothing in the world could possibly be wrong, as if no evil could possibly exist. Perhaps that's why I remember this time leading up to my own entrance to Hogwarts so vividly. The crisp autumn air never seemed fresher, the winter's snow never seemed more beautiful, the spring flowers never smelled so lovely, and my own life never seemed so peaceful.

The holidays briefly interrupted this tranquil period as over a dozen of Weasley children returned to their families. James and Al came home looking so much older than I had remembered, and Al, in particular, looked more comfortable with himself than I had ever seem him looking. He and Rose seemed to have performed various acts of bravery and courage of the likes that I could only dream of, triumphing over villains such as Chase Zabini. Uncle Ron asked a few times about Scorpius Malfoy, but all Al or Rose would do, when he was mentioned, was frown.

"Rose doesn't like to talk about it," Al explained to me when we were alone, "because he's beating her in almost every class. He's never openly hostile or mean, but, well, you know Rose. She can't stand being second-best."

James had his own opinion on the subject. "He's a git, just like his father. _All_ Malfoys are gits."

"Here, here, mate!" cousin Fred said, nodding. "Speaking of Malfoy, maybe we should try that new prank on him? Could be fun."

"James Sirius Potter, don't you even _think_ about it!" Mummy exclaimed. "As if I need one more letter home telling me that my son has blown up an entire wing of the school." I let out a laugh at that--why hadn't my parents ever told me James did that?--and even Mummy's mouth twitched. "You're setting your sister a bad example, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." James waved his hand impatiently, as if he could swipe away all of her arguments. "I'm really hungry, Mum. Do we have any cookies?"

Mummy frowned, clearly unsure of whether or not she wanted to let James change the subject, but she eventually shrugged and answered, "No, but we're going to visit Grandma later today, so you can have your cookies then."

I remember making the cookies later on with Grandma and eating all the leftover dough in the bowl. That dough tasted like heaven, for no one, after all, made better cookies than Grandma. I told her so, causing her to smile fondly at me and say, "You flatter me, dear."

The rest of the holidays prove to be a blur. I remember receiving a pretty silver necklace from Mummy and Daddy and the cookie recipe from Grandma along with her usual jumper and baked good, but not much else. I think I gave Céline a wizards' chess set and Hugo a box of Weasley Wizard Wheezes' invisibility gumdrops (good for an entire hour). In fact, I can't remember much of anything until the summer holidays, when Victoire graduated from Hogwarts.

I'd known that Victoire and Teddy were dating, and I'd whispered my hopes a few times to Céline that her sister would marry Teddy so that he could really be a member of our family, but I hadn't expected them to get engaged so fast. They planned to not marry until she was at least twenty-three--which was a random age, in my opinion. Why not twenty-two or twenty-four?--but still. Engaged.

I wondered if Rose would be jealous. She'd had something of a crush on Teddy when she was younger--she had always been close enough to him to see that he was nice, but never close enough to consider him a brother, as I did--and, although she'd never explicitly stated that her crush had ended, I had just assumed that it was over when she left for Hogwarts. I hoped that, if she wasn't over Teddy, she never had to see him with Victoire; bone only had to look at the two of them together to know that no one, no matter how wonderful, would ever take the other's place.

Céline, the first chance she got, interrogated me and Hugo about Teddy, whom she had never before had too much contact with, given the large age difference. What was he like? Was he nice? Did he ever get annoying? Would he ever hurt her sister? Questions like these flowed from Céline's lips, and I was sure, seeing how demanding she was at that moment, that I'd answer her questions all wrong, but she seemed pleased with what she gathered. "I'll have to see him before I can be sure," she told us when she had finished, "but I think I can like him."

I'm assuming she did like him, although she rarely mentioned him to me or Hugo. I think the idea that her sister was growing up and leaving her behind scared her a bit, and she felt that, if she ignored Teddy and his connection to her sister, then maybe Victoire would go back to being first and foremost her big sister. Out of respect for her feelings, I never mentioned Teddy, either, when he was an avoidable topic of discussion, and I made sure Hugo did the same--I doubted that he'd think to steer clear of Teddy on his own.

A picture Teddy and Victoire, as a couple, was my first attempt at drawing real people. I had become skilled enough at drawing flowers, fruits, trees, etc. that I felt it was worth a try, at least. The picture came out looking quite deformed, but, regardless, I was proud of my first attempt and vowed that, just as I had become more skilled at drawing inanimate objects, I would improve my drawings of people during my last free year before Hogwarts.

I broke the rules, after drawing this drawing, for the first time. I, remembering my suspicions that Teddy knew of my hobby, rashly sent the picture anonymously to Teddy. He, thankfully, never mentioned to me that he received the sketch, but I knew, somehow, that he did.

Alice Longbottom, the same age as James but a Hufflepuff, suddenly started to write to me after the winter holidays of this last year had ended. I'd known her my whole life, yet we'd never been close--she was a shy girl, preferring to spend her time exploring nature or taking care of magical creatures--so I was slightly suspicious as to why she was choosing now, of all times, to write to me. And not just to write to me, but to write to me _frequently_ and about James (though, maybe this choice wasn't so illogical because, with James as the topic, I had little difficulty in writing back detailed responses).

"She wants to talk to you about your brother?" Hugo asked confusedly when I told him. "Wouldn't it be easier for her to just ask James her questions?" I shrugged, having no response, for I had been thinking the same thing. "Merlin, girls are so weird."

"I take offense at that," I said, smacking him lightly across the back of the head.

"Well, all girls but you, of course. And Céline," he added belatedly, as though she might be listening in (though she was, at the time, visiting her family in France).

I asked James about Alice when he returned home for the summer holidays, but he just turned red--though, strangely enough, he looked quite pleased--and became deaf to everything I said until I changed the subject. I had been planning on asking Al and Rose, too, but there was something in James' embarrassment that kept me from doing so. I think it was the fact that he obviously didn't want the family to know… well, that and the fact that I wanted James to explain things to me himself. This was the first time that I felt closed off from my big brother, my hero, and a part of me hated Alice for doing that. Maybe, I realized, this was why Céline had such trouble liking Teddy, even though she got along with him.

For the rest of the holidays and right up until I boarded the Hogwarts Express, I didn't mention Alice to James, nor did he mention her to me. My last few months as an uneducated--in the magical sense, at least--girl passed fairly quickly. I went shopping with Hugo and Céline for our school supplies, I read my acceptance letter over and over again, and I even read of a few of my school books--Céline had told me and Hugo that we'd look like idiots if we came to school without reading any of them; in fact, she said, the school would probably chuck us right back home until we "got serious about learning"--in my excitement.

The three of us were asked many times, over the course of that month, what house we'd like to be in. All of us said Gryffindor because, with a family like ours, there really was no other option. I mean, it was okay if someone ended up actually being sorted into Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff--Teddy was in Hufflepuff and Victoire in Ravenclaw--but a Weasley (or Potter, in my case) was expected to _want_, at least, to end up in Gryffindor. There was an obsession in our family with the Lion House and its inherent bravery.

I know that most Weasleys usually felt fearful about not becoming a Gryffindor, but, honestly, I wasn't very worried. All of my family had survived whatever test was required during the Sorting--I couldn't think of anyone, really, that _hadn't_ survived--and I was fairly confident in my courage and bravery. I certainly wasn't smart enough to be a Ravenclaw, good-natured enough to be a Hufflepuff (I might've, er, purposely left out a few memories that show my less-than-desirable side. But, with parents like mine, how could I not inherit a temper? I mean, really, it's not my fault), or ambitious enough to be a Slytherin. Gryffindor was all that was left to me.

Yet, although I would only ever confess this to Al--it was nice to know that, in the future, I'd always have Al nearby to talk to--a part of me (albeit a very small part) wanted to go to another House, namely Slytherin. Surely it couldn't be as bad as everyone claimed it was--Teddy's Gran, after all, was in that House--and I wanted to prove this for Mary's sake. If I was in Slytherin, then hopefully my family would see that maybe, just maybe, the rumors about Slytherin were ill-founded; maybe my family wouldn't continue to blindly accept all stereotypes about Slytherins. Al told me that was sweet of me--sweet enough to put me into Hufflepuff, even--but not to get my hopes up. I was destined to become a Gryffindor, he told me, just like most of our family before me. It was in my blood.

"And--I'm, er, sorry to tell you this, Lils--but you're the most Gryffindor-ish person I know." He was right, of course, but that didn't keep me from half-hoping.


	2. Getting to Know the School

_**Disclaimer: **I don't own it._

**Chapter 2: Getting to Know the School**

(September 1st- Christmas Holidays, First Year)

My first thought as Mummy shook me awake on September 1st was that, if I had to wake up this early every day during the school year, I might just snap. I moved so slowly and so sleepily through the morning that, not only did I not have to chance to finish my breakfast--toast with a generous serving of butter--I also forgot my drawing supplies in the rush to leave on time. Mummy and Daddy were furious when I insisted we go back home, especially since I refused to tell them why. In the end, though, after I let out a few (fake) tears, Daddy gave in and speeded back home.

Even with Daddy's speeding, however, we barely made it to Platform Nine and Three Quarters on time. Hugo and Céline were nowhere to be found. I figured they'd already gotten a compartment and spent the next twenty minutes dragging my luggage through the train before I finally found them in a compartment with Rose and Al (I wondered how he'd managed to get there before me). The four were in the middle of an animated discussion about the latest quidditch match between the Appleby Arrows and the Wigtown Wanderers, though Céline looked as if she were about to die of boredom from the topic. As soon as she saw me, she quickly gestured to the seat next to her and started to talk.

"Where have you been?" she demanded. "I've been dying to talk to you! Guess what I heard coming on the train?"

"What?" I asked, plopping tiredly down next to her and letting out a sigh.

"Fred--our dear, immature, idiotic cousin Fred--has a _girlfriend_." I let out a gasp. Fred had always been, well, childish and untactful, more into pranking people and wreaking havoc than dating girls. I was amazed that he'd been willing to commit to a girl, and even more amazed that a girl would agree to go out with him. "Her name's Savannah Woods."

"The Gryffindor Keeper?" I asked, and Céline nodded. "Is she really good at quidditch?" I already was worried that, when I tried out for the quidditch team next year, she'd be much better than me; how could I get the position over someone with seniority?

Céline rose an eyebrow. "How am I supposed to know? I haven't exactly seen her play yet. But," she added, seeing my anxiety, "I'm sure you're a better player than her."

"Well," I said, shrugging, "maybe it won't matter. Maybe I'll be Sorted into another House."

"What are you talking about?" asked Céline. "Of course you'll be a Gryffindor. How could you not be?"

"I--" I began, but I was cut off as the compartment door opened.

"Have you seen Ch--" a boy started, but he broke off once his cold gray eyes had swept over the five of us in the compartment. The first thing I noticed about him was the fact that he was tall--much taller than his youthful face seemed to warrant. The second, Rose's clenched jaw and narrowed eyes. He glanced once more at us all, curtly muttered, "Never mind," and left.

As soon as he was gone, I turned, as did Hugo and Céline, questioningly towards Al. "Malfoy," he quickly explained, staring with evident dislike at the closed door.

"What a git!" exclaimed Hugo, looking towards Al for approval of his assessment. Rose, however, was the one to praise his opinion.

Personally, I didn't find him to be too much of a git. Sure, he acted rudely, but it was obvious from Rose's glower and Al's quiet hostility that he wasn't wanted, and I knew I'd be rude if placed in the same position. Besides, I had made a vow not to judge anyone until I had enough evidence to do so fairly, and I intended to keep it. I was nothing if not truthful to my promises, even when I was the only one who knew about said promises.

I mused on this manner for a while, until the food trolley came by. As I was starving--my stomach needed more substance than half a breakfast could provide--I spent over three galleons to buy a towering mound of my favorite sweet, Cauldron Cakes. Hugo unthinkingly reached for one of my Cakes, but I immediately slapped his hand away.

"Come on!" he exclaimed in exasperation. "It's not like you can eat all of them on your own!"

"Want to bet?" I asked him, protectively putting an arm in front of the pile.

"Lily, don't," Al warned me, "you'll make yourself sick."

Hugo, however, seemed eager to take the bet, so I chose to ignore Albus' advice. I won the bet, but, less than an hour later, I was wishing that I hadn't; my stomach felt as if it were writhing, and the swaying motion of the train only exacerbated the feeling. I definitely wasn't looking forward to the Welcoming Feast that Hugo kept asking Al about. I managed to suck up my queasiness for most of the journey, though, until Hugo mentioned--so very stupidly, considering the fact that, at that point, we were in the unsteady first year boats traveling across a vast lake--the one food guaranteed to make me sick: cheese. I turned pale and vomited straight into the water. ("Remind me never to swim in here," Céline said, scrunching up her face in disgust).

"Sorry," said Hugo sheepishly. "I forgot you hated cheese." I could understand why he forgot, since most people lovecheese, but I was still inclined to be mad at him. As my best friend, he really should have remembered; he was, after all, the one who teased me most often about my inability so much as look at a pizza without feeling ill.

The story of my upchucking spread quickly, as gossip is wont to do; by the time that we first years were called into the Great Hall, I was known by most of my peers as "vomit girl." I knew James and Al would love the nickname once they heard it; they'd probably think the story was a riot. For this reason, I couldn't look at them when I entered, even though I knew that the gossip hadn't yet spread to them.

"Food," Hugo moaned, seeing all the plates on the House tables. "I need _food_."

"Don't talk to me about food," I warned him, my stomach already beginning to twist again at the thought.

"Shut up, both of you," Céline hissed. "I'm trying to listen." She nodded her head towards Professor Longbottom--I had to remind myself not to call him "Uncle Neville" at school--who, as Deputy Headmaster, was reading off a list with the name of the first year students. Hugo opened his mouth to reply, but he wisely closed it again at Céline's glare.

Eventually the time came when my own name was called out, and I turned bright red. Now my peers had a name to attach to "vomit girl." I was thankful, therefore, when the Sorting Hat, tattered and dusty, fell down past my nose and blocked out my view of all the smirking faces. I felt downright small in that Hat, though; it hadn't covered anyone else's face as completely as it did mine.

"_Slytherin, eh?"_ the Hat said, the voice sounding so much like it was coming from within me that I jumped. _"No need to be frightened, it's just me, the Sorting Hat. You're not going crazy."_

'I'm not frightened,' I reflexively thought, and I heard the voice give a wheezy chuckle.

"_Of course you aren't. You've got a lot of bravery in you. Gryffindor bravery. Maybe it's not the flashy sort that your eldest brother has, and maybe it's not always as obvious, even to you, but it's there. You're courage is a steady as a rock; it'll allow you to remain true to your morals and beliefs no matter what obstacles you face. Yet, a part of you doesn't want Gryffindor, does it? A part of you wants Slytherin. How unusual, for all the Potters that I've ever known have always begged me _not_ to place them in Slytherin."_

'Well, why not Slytherin? It can't be as bad as everyone says.'

"_Of course it isn't; it has as many strengths to balance out its weaknesses as any of the other Houses. These strengths, however, you do not possess. You lack the ambition, the thirst to prove yourself."_

'How do you know?' I thought back, because, really, the nerve of that hat, trying to explain myself to _me._

The voice laughed again. _"I can see into your head, Lily Ginevra Potter. I know you better than you know yourself. You don't feel the Slytherin need to show your talent; you're confident in yourself with or without others' praise and recognition."_ I couldn't deny that, as much as I wanted to. _"You know I'm right. This desire to defy all stereotypes only strengthens your Gryffindor qualities; it takes true courage to overcome prejudices. You clearly belong in _GRYFFINDOR!"

My groan was drowned out by a storm of clapping. I took my seat next to James and Al feeling somehow disappointed, though I knew I shouldn't have been. I had, after all, always wanted to be with my family in Gryffindor; and, even at its strongest, the part of me that wanted Slytherin was small. I had just felt like, as stupid as it sounded, my destiny somehow lay with the Serpent House, but apparently I was wrong.

"Weasley, Céline!" I heard Professor Longbottom call out, and Céline confidently walked up to the stool. Half of the male population let out a collective gasp at her beauty, and I rolled my eyes at their shallowness. She was only eleven years old and they were already lusting after her; it was pathetic.

A few seats down the table from me, I saw my cousin Marie sit up straighter in her seat. No doubt she was hoping that one of her sisters would finally join her in Gryffindor--Victoire had been in Ravenclaw, as had the twins, Sophie and Angelique--no matter how much she liked to claim indifference to her separation. I wished Céline would become a Gryffindor, too, but I'd be lying if I said Marie was the reason; I just wanted my best friend to be with me.

The Sorting Hat took about fifteen seconds to make a decision about Céline before it shouted out, "RAVENCLAW!" Our eyes met across the Great Hall, and she looked as heartbroken as I imagine I did. What was I going to do without Céline in Gryffindor?

"Weasley, Hugo!" came next, and I clenched my fists anxiously. What if Hugo, too, was Sorted into a different House? I didn't think I could take it. Thankfully, however, the Hat announced, "GRYFFINDOR!" within three seconds of being placed on his head.

I refused to eat any of the food that magically appeared on the plates after "Yates, William!" took his place at the Hufflepuff table, though Hugo kept waving food at me in what I assume he meant to be an appetizing way, but which in actuality made me want to never eat again. I was thankful when the food vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Headmistress Sprout recited a speech about the new year, and as soon as she finished, Céline rushed across the hall and threw her arms sadly around me.

"I tried to get the Sorting Hat to put me in Gryffindor," she complained, her eyes swimming with unshed tears, "but the Hat was adamant about Ravenclaw." I wanted to tell her that the same type of thing happened to me, but I couldn't. I knew that, even though she was my best friend, she wouldn't understand--nor would Hugo, for that matter. To them, Slytherins were and always would be evil, so how could I tell them that I wanted to actually be a Slytherin?

I entered my dormitory later that night assumed I'd like my new roommates, of which I had two. Rarely before my entrance to Hogwarts had I ever disliked someone--excepting, of course, of my cousins Priscilla, Andrew, and, on occasion, Fred--so the fact that, within five minutes of meeting Abigail Chambers and Melinda Fudge, I already hated them shocked me.

I had barely entered the room when Abigail asked, "You're Lily Potter, right?" And then, before I had a chance to respond, "Aren't you the girl that vomited?"

"That's so gross!" squealed Melinda. "You must be _so_ embarrassed."

I opened my mouth to reply, but Abigail cut me off to say, "Of _course_ she's embarrassed. I mean, what a horrible first impression. 'Vomit girl.' There can't be anything worse than that."

"You're so right. It--"

"I'm tired," I loudly interrupted, forcing my face into a stiff smile. "So, if you'll excuse me."

"Oh," said Abigail, taken aback, "of course." She turned to Melinda and whispered, loudly enough for me to hear, "It's probably for the best. We'll look bad by association if we're friends with 'vomit girl.'"

It took all of my self-control not to punch them both right then and there. I remember thinking to myself that this would be a long seven years. I lost no time in voicing that opinion to Rose the next morning, to which she gave me a sympathetic smile. She offered to let me sleep in her dormitory, but I suspected her roommates wouldn't be pleased with that arrangement so I declined. "I'll just suffer it out," I told her, "or die trying."

"So melodramatic," she chided me, but she was smiling as she did so. "But I'm proud of your endurance, Lily. It's admirable."

James, during those first few weeks of school, took extra care to make sure Hugo and I--though I suspected that he wasn't thinking of Hugo when he did it--found our way to our classes on time. When I mentioned that I didn't want him to be late to his own classes, he said, "Don't worry about it, Lils; I'm in trouble so often it doesn't even matter. But, it's my duty as your big brother to make sure that _you_ don't get into trouble." A few of James' friends seemed surprised by this, but I couldn't imagine why; James had always taken care of me like this. I had never realized that he wasn't so thoughtful where other people were concerned.

My days quickly became so full to the brim that I put my plan to get to know the Slytherins on hold--though, I told myself, I wouldn't give it up. I rarely had any peace from classes and homework, but the little free time I did have was spent chatting with Céline and Hugo in the library or on the grounds. I didn't have enough time to do anything else.

Charms with Professor Hopkins quickly became my favorite class, if only because I had a natural talent for it. I wasn't into studying or doing homework--I always did it, but I did it grudgingly at best--as Céline was, so any class that I had to work less at to understand was fine by me. I suppose the fact that my wand--nine and a half inches, made of beech with a unicorn hair core, flexible--(according to Ollivander's) specialized in Charms also helped.

Transfiguration, on the other hand, proved to be my weakness. James couldn't understand why--Transfiguration was his best subject--but Al shared my pain; his best subject was Defense Against the Dark Arts, which I also had some talent at--well, as long as I was mad, because my magical potential had the tendency to skyrocket with my temper.

I suspect, as unfair as it probably is, that Professor Longbottom was too nice when he graded me in Herbology. I was never a _bad_ student in his class, but I certainly wasn't an "E" student. Most classes I only half-listened to his lectures while I doodled plants along the margins of my parchment and schoolbooks.

The only class I really worried about failing, however, was History of Magic. I don't know what I would've done without Céline--Gryffindors had that class with Ravenclaws--because I, no matter how hard, just couldn't pay attention. Thankfully, however, she let me--and Hugo--copy her notes after every class.

Towards the end of October, I finally got my chance to talk to a Slytherin. Hagrid was letting each of the Houses carve a giant pumpkin to display in the Great Hall, and I was running late--I'd been drawing in my dormitory, so I hadn't noticed when the entire House left Gryffindor Tower--and, apparently, so was Scorpius Malfoy. Fate, it seemed, was urging me on.

I was, I remember, a bit unsure at first about trying to get to know a _Malfoy_, of all the possible Slytherins to talk to, but I figured, if I was destined to be a brave Gryffindor and not a sly Slytherin, at least I'd live up to that destiny.

"Hello," I cheerfully called out, plastering a big smile on my face. Scorpius stopped in his tracks, looked at the Gryffindor badge on my school robes, and regarded at me as if I were unhinged. "My name's Lily Potter."

"How nice for you." He started to move again, his hand buried in the pocket of his robe, no doubt fingering his wand. I thought he was a bit of an idiot to be so hostile because, really, how could a first year like myself--one who'd only ever performed spells as harmless as levitation--ever overpower a third year?

"And you're Scorpius Malfoy, right?" I received no reply, so, desperate for something to discuss, I called out, "I'm sorry about your name." I winced right after it came out because that seemed to be exactly the type of thing my dreaded roommates would say. But, really, I hadn't meant to be rude, and my idiocy did, at least, get him to stop.

"Excuse me?" he asked, his gray eyes narrowing. "Got a problem with my name?"

"Of course not! My brother's name is Albus Severus, which is just as bad. I was just--"

"Because," he continued as if I hadn't spoken, "if you have a problem with it, take it up with my father, not me. It's not as if I chose my own name."

"I know you didn't," I quickly assured him. "I just said the first thing that came to my mind, I didn't think--"

"Clearly," he said, walking away yet again. "Because, if you had been thinking, Potter, you would've realized that I don't have any desire to talk to you. Especially not if you're going to insult me the entire time."

I wished, at that point, that the ground would open up beneath me and swallow me whole. Could I have been any meaner if I tried? To make it up to him, I made yet another promise to myself; I'd go out of my way to prove to him that I wasn't as uncivil as I had appeared in that moment. I'd show him that I wasn't the type of person to start a conversation with him with the intention of insulting him.

I'm not sure how long I stood in that hallway before I remembered the pumpkin-carving festivities, but it was long enough that, by the time I arrived in the Great Hall, the carving process was almost finished. I had barely entered before an arm reached out and grabbed me, and I was spun around to face Alice Longbottom.

"Hey," she greeted me, smiling widely, "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"For me?" I asked, slightly confused. What could she possibly want from me? Did she want to reinstate our quasi-friendship? The latter I found unlikely because, honestly, what fourth year goes out of her way to friend a first year?

"Yes, you! I wanted to talk to you about, er--" a crimson blush spread across her already pink face--"James, actually."

"Is he okay?" I asked, slightly alarmed.

"Oh, he's fine, just fine," she assured me, and I let out a sigh of relief. "It's just, remember our letters last year?" I nodded. "Remember how I asked you once if he was dating someone, and you said the idea was laughable?" Again I nodded. "Well, is the idea still laughable? Because he seemed awfully cozy with Cassandra Meadowes during break today." She looked distraught at the very idea, yet also somehow hopeful, as if I could alleviate all her fears.

And suddenly I understood why Alice had gone out of her way to talk to me not only now, but last year, too. She fancied James. I felt like a bit of an idiot for not realizing this sooner; it seemed so obvious. "Oh, er, I don't really know. But," I added, seeing her face fall, "I hope not."

That seemed to cheer her up somewhat, and it was truthful. I didn't want James to date anyone--it meant that he was growing up, that things were irrevocably changing in our family--but I'd rather he dated, if he had to, someone like Alice, whom I knew, than a Cassandra Meadowes, whom I just an hour earlier had no idea even existed. "Me too," Alice confessed in a sad whisper before heading back to her fellow Hufflepuffs.

Seconds later I heard Céline ask, "What was that about?"

"Love issues," I answered, turning around.

"Poor girl," she said, and I nodded in agreement. After a pause, "It's a bit odd that she came to you, though, isn't it? Not that you don't give great advice," she quickly assured me when she saw my pointed glare, "because of course you do, but she's a fourth year and you're a first year. Shouldn't the roles be reversed?"

"She fancies James," I explained, but I immediately regretted it. What if Alice didn't want me to tell anyone?

"James?" Céline repeated disbelievingly. "As in, my cousin and your brother James?"

"Yep."

"_Why_?" she asked, positively gaping. "What could she possibly see in him?"

"He's not that bad, you know," I said defensively because no one, not even Céline, was allowed to insult my brother in my presence.

"Not with you," she agreed. "He's an absolute _angel_ with you. But, with everyone else, he's a nightmare. How could someone as pretty, nice, and…" she paused, searching for the right word, before she finished, "_responsible_ as Alice fall for one of the Gryffindor slackers?"

"Well, he's smart, too. He never gets below an 'E' grade in any class--except for History of Magic, of course, but who, besides you and Rose, could pass that class?" Scorpius Malfoy, I immediately answered myself, because wasn't he beating Rose in nearly every class?

Céline shook her head. "That's all very nice, Lily, but he's still a slacker. And an annoying prankster, too. He and Fred've had seven detentions this month alone for turning someone's skin purple or making someone break out in hives. Neither is exactly the type of boy that a normal girl fancies."

"Fred has a girlfriend," I pointed out, and Céline laughed.

"Yeah, well, let's see how long _that_ relationship lasts," she said, and I grinned. "Now, go to your Gryffindor friends because Hugo's hand is about to fall off, I swear, from all that gesturing" before I could.

I asked Al about James and Cassandra later that night, but he seemed as clueless as I was. It was a nice excuse to talk to Al, though, because I hadn't had much of an opportunity to do so lately. I was able to vent out a lot of my fears and worries; I even confessed how I had asked the Sorting Hat put me into Slytherin. He, to my very great surprise, told me how the Sorting Hat had been about to put him into Slytherin until he asked it not to. We both laughed at the irony, and I hope he came away feeling as cleansed as I did. It was nice to get that secret of mine off my chest, and, as for the James matter, Al had cheered me up by promising never to date a girl without first receiving my permission.

Nothing too eventful happened during the next few weeks. James continued to date Cassandra--though, having no doubt been notified by Al, he tactfully asked for my approval before officially asking her out. I met her once or twice during this time, but I no longer can remember exactly what we discussed; I only remember those meetings being quite awkward.

I also sought Alice out during this time period to offer her my encouragement because I felt miserable for her. She obviously liked James very much, and it saddened me to think that she'd spent over half a year developing a close owl correspondence with me to no avail; I didn't want that effort to be a complete waste, and a friendship--a real friendship--between us seemed the only way to ensure it had some use. Most fourth year girls, I'm sure, would've scorned the idea of being friends with a first year, but Alice, being as kind-hearted as her father, embraced me with open arms--in the metaphorical sense, of course.

James got Hugo into detention during the second weekend in November, which caused a lot of problems for me, torn as I was between an irate best friend and a unrepentant brother. He had put some fireworks in Hugo's school bag that with slow-burning wicks so that, in the middle of Tranfiguration, they suddenly exploded with a huge bang. Professor Burroughs refused to believe that Hugo was innocent and sentenced him to clean the classroom that night without magic, no matter how long it took--a whooping six hours and thirty-minutes.

Also concerning James, I had my first experience watching him play for the Gryffindor quidditch team. My memory might be overexaggerating James' skill, but I thought he played spectacularly; he clearly was Mummy's son. No one, not even the seventh-year Chaser on the team, outscored him. Gryffindor defeated Slytherin easily, two hundred and seventy points to ninety. Best of all, Savannah was definitely not at her prime during the match, and while that sounds horrible, I couldn't help my vindictive pleasure; maybe I wouldn't have such a hard time becoming Keeper after all.

The game proved to be great fodder for my drawings. I drew a couple of sketches of James scoring a goal, one of Gryffindor's Seeker, Edmund Westerly, catching the snitch, and one, particularly well-done, of Savannah missing a quaffle (though I threw my hard work into the Common Room's fire once I had finished it because I felt guilty for drawing it in the first place). Abigail nosily asked me a few times what I was doing, but I lied and said it was a sketch Professor Longbottom wanted of some plant in Herbology, so she dropped the subject--she hated schoolwork even more than I did. In fact, compared to her, I looked like downright studious.

I finally, about a week after Gryffindor won the quidditch match, talked to Scorpius outside of the Hospital Wing (Hugo had been practicing a spell to transform an bottle cap into a button and missed his target, hitting his sister instead and somehow transforming her hair into yarn) where I'd been headed to visit Rose. His friend Chase Zabini, Slytherin's Seeker, had gotten a concussion during an intense quidditch practice--the Slytherin Quidditch Captain, a Beater, was displeased with the team's performance the previous week and had decided to vent out his anger on his Seeker--I later learned, which led Scorpius there in the first place.

"Hey," I greeted him slowly, afraid that my mouth would make a fool of me again.

"You again?" was the only reply I received.

"Yes, me," I said awkwardly. "So, er, how have you been doing?"

"Fine." He paused, then smirkingly asked, "And you? Vomited lately?"

I winced at that because, Merlin, no one had mentioned that little incident since the second week of school. "No," I answered, forcing my tone to remain friendly, even though I was dying to yell at him. "I'm glad to say that I haven't. You see, I had eaten three galleons worth of Cauldron Cakes that day, and then Hugo mentioned cheese, which is always guaranteed to make me queasy--"

"Do I look like I care?" he interrupted, rolling his eyes.

I waited a few seconds to respond, but when I did, I had to smile. "Yes. You look thrilled, in fact. So, as I was saying, cheese has always disgusted me. Both of my brothers are crazy about it--James sometimes even eats it plain--but, and I don't know why, there's something about cheese that I just can't stand. The smell, the taste, it's all so…" I trailed off and shuddered.

Meanwhile, Scorpius had been looking at me as if I were crazy, which I chose to purposely misconstrue. "I can tell you're a fan of it, so please don't hold my disgust against me. After all, as a wise boy once told me, I can hardly help how my taste buds react to cheese."

"You completely missed my point."

"Yes, well, I might be paraphrasing." I waved my hand impatiently. "But, even though I hate cheese, I absolutely adore potatoes. Especially mashed potatoes. Do you like mashed potatoes?" And then, without waiting for a response, "I doubt it. You don't seem like the mashed potato type. You seem like the cheese type. Not that they're mutually exclusive, of course, because I know Hugo loves both--but he loves everything, so that--"

"Do you ever stop talking?" Scorpius interrupted me, practically gaping.

"Sometimes. Only, when I'm nervous and I can't think of what to say, like now, I tend to ramble."

"If you're nervous, then why bother talking to me?" he asked. "I certainly don't want to talk to you."

"Because the most uncomfortable things in life are usually the most rewarding," I told him, and his jaw literally dropped.

He eventually closed his mouth, then opened it to say something, then closed it, and finally opened it again. "What is _wrong_ with you?" he asked me disbelievingly. "You've got to be the weirdest person I've ever met."

I laughed at that. He had no idea just how weird I was. "I'll take that as a compliment," I told him, grinning. He shook his head a few times as if he were unsure what to make of me before he walked uncertainly away, looking over his shoulder at me every few seconds. This only made me laugh harder, and I fear I sounded a bit mental. At least, that's what Hugo told me when he came out of the Hospital Wing to see what all the commotion was about (Scorpius had disappeared from sight by that point). I told him I was just excited about the snow, for a sheet of white had just settled over the Castle the previous night.

Along with more snow, December brought more excitement for me than November, if only because I was so excited for Christmas. I loved the decorations springing up around the castle and the carols being sung by all--especially by me, despite the fact that Hugo informed me at least twice a day that my voice sounding like "the gurgling of a dying cat."

Leo, who'd been surprisingly well-behaved during first term--except for one incident when he scratched up Melinda for trying to pet him with gaining his approval first--flipped out once December began. People had started their packing for holidays back home as early as the first week of December, and all the commotion and confusion set him on edge. In the first two weeks alone I had nine students and one teacher--an irate Professor Sinistra--complain to me that he'd bitten, scratched, hissed at, etc. them. He even growled at Hugo once, which absolutely shocked me, for he'd always seemed to like Hugo.

Hugo got really paranoid after that; he was sure Leo was out to get him. I told him to cut it out--Leo might've been temperamental, but he was _my_ temperamental cat and I adored him--but he wouldn't listen. In fact, he spent an entire week avoiding even me because Leo, in his anxiety, had taken to following me around. He didn't want to make it easy for my crazy cat to find him, he later told me, once he had calmed down a bit.

Leo was there when, a day before the holidays started, I once again talked to Scorpius Malfoy. Shockingly enough, Leo didn't seem to mind Scorpius, but maybe that was because our conversation lasted less than thirty seconds.

I was heading towards the library to meet Céline and happened to pass by him. I was going to say something to him, but he seemed to be in a rush, so I didn't want to distract him. To my very great surprise, however, he slowed down as he approached me and said, with no greeting at all, "I'm not a cheese person. I like it well enough, I suppose, but not enough to be offended if someone else dislikes it. Potatoes don't bother me, either; it's pickles that I avoid like the plague."

"I don't like pickles either," I told him, smiling.

"Good to hear," he said, passing me by. I could've sworn, though, in those few seconds before he his face disappeared from my view, the ghost of a smile formed on his face. His gray eyes seemed less cold, at least, and more amused. This knowledge made me smile even wider; I had just had my first pleasant conversation with a Slytherin.

"See," I said to myself, proud of achievement, "there _is_ some good in them." I just hoped that all my progress wasn't lost over the holidays.

"Good in who?" a voice behind me asked, and I turned around to see Rose standing there, eyeing me suspiciously.

"No one," I quickly answered. I couldn't imagine what my family'd do if they found out I'd even attempted to associate with Slytherins; probably refuse to let me return to Hogwarts after the holidays ended, or something to that effect. James, in particular, would flip out; I could already imagine him saying, "Merlin, Lily, you talked to Slytherin _alone_? And a Malfoy at that? What if he had hurt you?"

"Uh huh," Rose murmured skeptically, and I could tell by the look in her eye that she wouldn't leave me alone until she found out the truth. This holiday, I knew, was going to be far too long and stressful.

-----

_**A/N:** LiMQ--Thank you! I was going to put her in Slytherin (because Harry never thought he had worry about his daughter, did he? ;) ) but, for the sake of this story, I wanted her to have the option of fitting in when she "dares to be different"; it'll take more courage for her to stand out when she's capable of blending in. She's already very unlike her family, though, even if she's in the same House; she views the world in a different way than many of them do because none of them was ever--in this story, at least--affected by a Mary Collins when young. Still, I think I'll end up writing a story with Lily in Slytherin once this is finished because it's such a fascinating idea._

_**xEmmax--**Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!_

_**100-percent-Harry-Potter-obsessed--**Thanks! _Rose_ won't be with Scorpius (Rose, the way I imagine her in this story, wouldn't mesh well with him at all; her bravery isn't the sort that would draw the hermit Scorpius out of his shell. Her bravery works in the way that she can face an challenge or obstacle without allowing fear to overcome her; she can face even her worst fears with a calm demeanor and logical thoughts--sounds so much like I'm describing superpowers or something, doesn't it? Haha), but maybe Scorpius will end up with another red-haired Weasley girl. ;) I'm not sure why I chose drawing for Lily--I know next to nothing about it, except what I learned years and years ago in elementary school art class (which isn't much)--but it was the very first hobby that I connected to her. It's almost as if she chose drawing herself._

_**Ramzes--**Thank you! I hope you like this chapter, too!_

_**Jessiquie--**Thanks! I was going for a different angle on Lily in this story. I've seen her portrayed a lot as an overly-cheerful girl who's incapable of any other emotion, so I wanted her to give her more depth, make her capable of feeling worry and sorrow and keeping secrets. And it put such a smile on my face to know that, even though you don't usually like second gen fanfics, you like this story, so thanks again!_


	3. Holiday Blues

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own it._

**Chapter 3: Holiday Blues**

(Christmas Holidays, First Year)

I managed to hold out for nearly a day before Rose, during the middle of the train ride back home, forced me out of the compartment to "go to the bathroom" with her. Hugo, oblivious to the fact that Rose had ulterior motives, asked disgustedly, "You're going to the bathroom _together_? _Why_? That's gross!"

"We're not going together, you git," I told Hugo, rolling my eyes. "She just wants me to walk there with her."

"Oh." He leaned back in his seat. "Okay, then."

As soon as we were out of the hearing range of the compartment, Rose stopped me. "Are you ready to tell me what's going on?" she asked me calmly, though her eyes were sharp.

"Nothing's going on Rose," I assured her.

"_Something_'s going on, Lily, or else you'd have already told me about it. I wasn't worried when I first asked you, but, now that you refuse to tell me, I'm starting to get very anxious. You know you can tell me anything, right? You know I'll always forgive you and love you?" I nodded uneasily.

Logically, I knew what she was saying was true, that my family would always love me, but sometimes I couldn't help my uncertainty. Daddy always told me that he wanted me to be unbiased and nice with everyone, yet he supported Uncle Ron whenever Uncle Ron insulted Slytherins. I could remember, when I was nine, laughing at the idea of Uncle Ron disowning Rose if she wasn't a Gryffindor, but now that I was put in the position to potentially be disowned--though I doubted I'd get _that_ harsh of a punishment--the idea wasn't so funny.

"Please, Lily," her voice broke through my thoughts, "just tell me what's going on." She sounded so sincere and caring that I almost told her then.

Almost.

"I'm, er," I fumbled around for an adequate lie and finally came up with, "failing Transfiguration. Professor Burroughs had a talk with me about it two days ago." It was a bit of a stretch, I knew, because--though it was my second weakest subject--I certainly wasn't about to fail. I was getting anywhere from a high "A" to a low "E." Not great, but not horrible, either.

She still looked skeptical. "But you mentioned something about there being 'some good in them,' and I fail to see how that applies to failing Transfiguration."

"Oh, that?" I asked, forcing my face into a sheepish smile. "I was talking about books. I, er, got an 'E' on our latest essay because I read the textbook more closely, so I was saying that books really did have some use."

I was afraid that my tone conveyed my lie, but Rose immediately accepted this information for the truth. "Oh, Lily," she said, pulling me into a hug, "I had no idea; I'm so sorry for bugging you about it. Hey, I have an idea," she suddenly said, leaning back to look me in the eye. "How about I tutor you? I've got a full schedule, but, for you, I'll make time; just tell me when you're able to do it."

"Er, thanks," I said slowly, unenthusiastically. I didn't really need the tutoring, and I felt bad that she was going to lessen her already limited free time, but what else could I do? I could hardly tell her that I'd just lied.

"Don't worry," she added, seeing my anxiety and misconstruing the source of it, "I promise not to tell anyone. It'll be our little secret." I gave her a fake smile. "By the end of this term you'll have an 'O' in Transfiguration, I promise."

I headed back to our compartment feeling even worse than I'd left it. Was I a bad person for lying, especially to someone as wonderful and selfless as Rose? I supposed it didn't matter in the end, though, because there was no going back on that lie, not if I didn't want to make Rose disappointed in me--and I hated making people disappointed in me. Disappointment always made me feel more guilty than even anger did.

"Long bathroom break," Céline commented when I sat back down next to her, and her voice betrayed annoyance at not being privy to the discussion I'd just had with Rose.

"Eventful, too," I whispered back. And, before she could ask, "Rose thinks I'm failing Transfiguration."

Céline looked intrigued. "How does she figure that?"

"Because I told her I am," I answered, shrugging guiltily.

"I see--oh, wait a minute, no I don't. Explain," she commanded, and I bristled a bit at her tone. I didn't feel like fighting with her, though, not so close to vacation, so I let out my annoyance in a sigh.

"She had some notion that I was doing something secretive, and even though I've told her over and over again that I wasn't, she refused to believe me," I told her.

"So, naturally, you told her that you're failing Transfiguration. How brilliant of you, Lily," she said sarcastically.

"It was the only way I could think of to get her to leave me alone. Could you come up with anything better on the spot? Don't answer that," I said when she opened her mouth. "I wasn't really expecting an answer."

"A rhetorical question?" she asked, and I frowned in confusion.

"Er, sure?" I could've sworn I'd heard a teacher--one of my muggle teachers--use that phrase before, but I hadn't been paying attention at the time. Céline opened her mouth to explain, but I quickly turned to strike up a conversation with Al; I didn't feel like listening to Céline lord her knowledge around.

Mummy and Daddy were already waiting for Al, James, and I at Platform Nine and Three Quarters by the time we pulled in. I felt very old to be on the returning from Hogwarts as opposed to receiving siblings home from Hogwarts. I was finally where I'd always dreamed of being.

Yet, I returned home with more baggage--in the figurative sense--than I'd ever imagined I would as a young child. I'd never realized that Hogwarts would change me--and had already changed my brothers, too--in so many ways. Before my first year at school, the only real secret I'd ever kept was my love of drawing; now, however, I had secrets up to my elbows. I hadn't told anyone that I was actively trying to befriend a Slytherin, Al was the only one to know that I'd wanted to be in Slytherin, Rose thought I was failing Transfiguration, and only Céline knew that I'd been lying to Rose when I told her this. I was finding it difficult to keep track of such a twisted web.

I remember musing about all these lies often during vacation, so much so that, on my second day at home, I sought Daddy out. He was sitting in his favorite comfy red chair by the TV, dozing off as he watched the news. I walked straight up to him and tried to sit in his lap, something I hadn't done for years. Still, I managed to just barely fit; I'd always been on the petite side.

Daddy let out an "oof!" when I sat down and curled up against him. "Hey, sweetie," he said, kissing the top of my head, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing," I answered, burying my head into his shoulder. My voice came out sounding muffled. "I just missed you is all."

"Is that why you wrote to me so often from Hogwarts?" he asked jokingly because, in all the hustle of my first few months at all, I hadn't written to him more than once a week. I felt immediately guilty; had I been neglecting my parents too much?

"Sorry, Daddy," I murmured, but the words, spoken against his shoulder, were incomprehensible.

"Sorry, didn't quite catch that," Daddy said. I leaned back to repeat myself and saw that he was grinning.

"I said, 'Sorry, Daddy.'"

"Aw, Lils, I was just teasing you," he told me. "You know I could never really be mad at you."

"Even if I did something really bad? Something that you didn't agree with?" I asked, suddenly keen on the conversation. "Would you still love me then?"

"Of course I would," Daddy assured me, sounding and looking shocked that I even had to ask in the first place. "I'll always love you no matter what you do." There was a pause in which he scrutinized my face and I blushed deeply. "Is there something you want to tell me, sweetie?"

Again, I was tempted to tell everything, but I shook my head instead. "No, of course not." I buried my face in his shoulder again. "I was just asking."

I tried to remember why I didn't do this more often--rest in Daddy's arms, I mean--because I felt so protected and loved there. All of the fears I had when I wasn't with Daddy seemed irrational in that moment, stupid, even. Yet, once I was forced to leave his embrace--Teddy had just arrived--my worries came back as strong as ever. My repose was only temporary.

Teddy brought some bad news with him. He'd just been visiting Victoire at her house before stopping by, and apparently the Delacour-Weasley branch of the family was undergoing some difficulties. Angelique and Sophie, twin sixth-year utterly identical in appearance and personality, had both fallen for Roger Davies II. The two were notorious in our household for their love of boys--in fact, they purposely worked their beauty to full effect in order to win over any and every boy, which neither Victoire nor Marie nor Céline had ever done--so, I thought to myself, it really was only a matter of time before they both wanted the same boy.

The two had, Teddy told us, been fighting over him for nearly the entire month of December, but he finally asked Angelique out on a date the day before term ended. Sophie, distraught, ran out of the house in tears almost immediately after she returned home--Angelique had gloatingly mentioned her new boyfriend Roger to Uncle Bill and Auntie Fleur in front of Sophie--and, when she returned three hours later, most of her silky blonde hair had been chopped off and its color had been dyed jet black. She couldn't stand looking so much like a her conceited, selfish sister, she had explained to her parents when they'd asked what she'd been thinking.

Auntie Fleur had grounded Sophie for the entirety of the Christmas Holidays and was, Teddy said, currently trying to find a way to repair the damage Sophie had done--which, we later found out, was irreversible. Sophie wasn't in Ravenclaw for nothing; she knew how to make her changes permanent.

Auntie Fleur and Uncle Bill, when we next saw them, claimed only to have gotten mad at Sophie for "mutilating" her hair--though I personally liked how it came out. She certainly looked different than her sisters, at least, which I assumed was her intention--without permission. I, however, had the impression that they were only punishing Sophie for trying to be different. Maybe it was my imagination overworking itself, but Auntie Fleur and Uncle Bill's other explanation seemed, well, implausible. It was Sophie's hair, after all; why would they get angry about how she wore it unless they were against anyone standing out?

This negative response to Sophie's situation served to reinforce my fear of my own secrets somehow getting out. I didn't want my family to know I was different if this was how they'd react to something as small, by comparison, as hair color or length.

Céline didn't help matters any because, every time that she came over, she mentioned something about Sophie's stupidity. "I can't believe she cut off her hair," she said the day after Sophie's "meltdown" occurred, shaking her head angrily. "She _loved_ that hair. What could she've been thinking?"

"Maybe she just wanted a change," I suggested, and Céline scrunched up her nose and shook her head. "Well, maybe she didn't want to look so much like Angelique anymore--didn't she say something about that? Maybe it hurt so much for her to look in the mirror while she still resembled Angelique that she had to change her appearance. Her heart _is_ broken, after all."

"Her heart isn't broken," Céline scoffed. "She'll be over this crush in less than a week, and then she'll regret what she did. She'll regret trying to… to _stand out_, to steal the spotlight back from Angelique."

"Is it so horrible that she might want to be different than Angelique?" I asked in a small voice, my stomach clenching painfully. Was Céline going to hate me, too, if my secrets came out? If I showed how different I myself was from the rest of my family?

"She doesn't want to be different than Angelique, Lily!" Céline snapped. "She just wants attention! That's all this is about; she wants hates the fact that Angelique is getting more notice than her."

"She's your sister, Céline. Can't you cut her some slack?" I asked. "You should be supporting her, even if you don't like the fact that she's different from how you want her to be."

"I can't, Lily," Céline said, sighing as if I were the illogical one in the conversation, which I knew wasn't true. In fact, I think this was the first time I ever felt smarter and more practical than Céline. "If you were in my position, you'd understand." I shook my head and left the room; I couldn't talk to Céline when she acted like this.

I wrote Sophie a letter later that day asking about her situation and whether it was worth standing out in life given the backlash she had received. We'd never really been close before this moment, but I suddenly felt as if she was the only one who could truly understand me. Maybe, I hoped, I could tell her everything I had bottled up inside without fear of a negative response.

Her letter back, while sweet and encouraging, did not open any confidences. She merely wrote, _"I _needed_ to do it, Lily, to satisfy my heart; I couldn't bear the thought of losing another boy I loved to a sister identical to me in looks and personality. Since I could hardly change the latter of the two--to do so would be to change my very nature--I was left with changing the former. So, no, I don't regret my actions, and, yes, standing out was worth the backlash. You'll understand when you're older and you fall in love yourself."_

I wondered why Sophie hadn't been placed in Gryffindor if she was able to so fearlessly stand up to her family; didn't this indicate a flaw in the Sorting Hat's judgment? And, if there was a flaw, then maybe I really did belong in Slytherin; I certainly, with my fears and secrets, didn't feel like a brave Gryffindor.

In order to forget my worrying for a bit, I turned to drawing the view from my window, a winter wonderland-esque scene. This, as I had hoped, calmed me down, and I retained that sense of tranquility even once I had finished drawing and left my room to join my family downstairs. I was able to enjoy myself with my fellow Weasleys/Potters and almost forget that I'd ever had any anxiety at all in life. Such was the influence my family had over me.

This peace lasted until Christmas night, when the Longbottoms, Scamanders, Teddy's Gran, Teddy himself, and Céline's Aunt Gabrielle all came over. I spent a few hours with Alice brushing up my knowledge on James--who, apparently, was now dating Eileen Travers--and then, in turn, talked with James about his new conquest, but he quickly changed the subject on me to play our favorite game: the word game. We'd choose a topic--foods, animals, things you can hold in you hand, etc.--and list a word, and then the other person would have to say a word on the same subject that began with the last letter of the previous word. A word cannot be repeated in this game.

It was James' turn to chose a topic, so he picked colors. He had no idea that, now that I was into drawing, I had a wide vocabulary of colors. I easily kicked him out of the game with "burgundy"; he had already used yellow by this point. He wanted a rematch, but I told him to think again; I rarely ever beat him at any game, and I wasn't about to ruin my good fortune so soon.

Leo, during this time, remained suspiciously absent--usually he followed me around whenever he felt anxious--and I set out worriedly to search for him. I found him, howling plaintively, twenty minutes later; he had been locked in a cabinet by cousin Andrew. Uncle Charlie and Auntie Olivia scolded him fiercely for that, but Andrew--the prat--was unrepentant. Once I told him to sleep with one eye open, however, the smirk fell right off his face.

Priscilla, of course, chose this moment to intervene, and even though she was a year younger than me, she started to tell me off for being so "mean" and "irresponsible." It was in vain for me to mention that Andrew had started it, for "I was older and should know to act more maturely." I was tempted to tell _her_ to sleep with one eye open, too, but I figured it'd just get her even angrier, and while that would be funny for me, I was sure Mummy wouldn't be too pleased. So, instead, I said, "You're right" all sweetly and walked away.

Uncle Neville--ironically, it now took effort not to call him "Professor Longbottom"--pulled me aside shortly after I did this with a firm look on his face. I assumed he was going to tell me off for acting disrespectfully towards Priscilla, or something along that line, and I was ready to defend myself--I had, after all, taken the high road and hadn't provoked her--but he said something entirely different than I had anticipated.

"What's this I hear about you failing Transfiguration, Lily?"

My eyes widened slightly. "How--"

"Rose asked me if she could use my office during her free time," he explained, "and I naturally wondered why she needed it. Her response was--after she had promised me to secrecy--that she had to tutor you in Transfiguration, that you were failing. Now, I know Transfiguration is far from your best subject, Lily, but I happen to also know for a fact that your grade in Transfiguration is currently hovering on the border between an 'A' and an 'E,' neither of which constitutes a failing grade. Which begs the question of how Rose came to have such a notion in her head. Any ideas?"

"I, er, might've told her something along those lines," I answered in a small voice. "Just maybe."

"I thought so," he said, his voice sounding dreadfully disappointment. My stomach squirmed uncomfortably. "I think you should tell her the truth, though I suspect she already knows that she's been lied to. I was, as you can imagine, rather shocked at what she had to say. Still, she deserves to hear you tell her this yourself. Can I trust you to do that?"

I nodded, feeling mortified. "Of course you can! I'll talk to her straightaway." I left to follow Uncle Neville's advice before he could make me feel even worse with his let down expression; I found Rose, with Hugo's help, upstairs. As I made my way up, I passed by Céline and she gave me a weird look, but I shrugged it off. I'd find out what Céline wanted later, I told myself; first I needed to settle things with Rose.

Rose looked up when I entered the room, but, except for a reddening in her ears and a narrowing in her eyes, she didn't show much of a reaction. Yet, with the always cool-headed Rose, such a small display of emotion as that betrayed volumes of her anger. The more calm and simultaneously red she was, the angrier she was guaranteed to be.

"Hello," she said curtly when I entered. "Come to start our Transfiguration lessons?"

"Er, about those," I began awkwardly, nervously playing with a strand of my red hair. "I'm not really failing Transfiguration."

"I know."

For a few seconds which felt like minutes we both remained silent. Rose, it seemed, was expecting more from me. "I only said that because, well, you wouldn't leave me alone," I told her. "You kept bugging me even though I told you nothing was going on, and it was annoying me."

"So you thought the best solution was to lie to me?" she asked, hurt. "Instead of telling me the truth?"

"I did te--" I began, but I stopped myself. I refused to lie to her again--at least not so soon. I didn't want her to somehow find out about a second lie; she'd probably decide to _never_ forgive me. "I lied because I didn't want to tell you the truth. I still don't. And I, well, felt it was unfair of you to force me to tell you something I didn't want to, so I took the easy way out and lied. I'm sorry."

"You should've told me that you didn't feel comfortable sharing, Lily," Rose said sadly. "I would've left you alone if you had said that instead of, 'Nothing.'"

"Would you have? Honestly?" I asked. "Because I don't think you would've, Rose."

"Well, maybe I wouldn't have, but--"

"But what? You deserved to know? I was selfish to keep something from you?" I cut in. "I shouldn't have to tell you everything, Rose. Everyone needs to keep some things a secret. Don't you have any secrets?"

"I…" She paused her, then answered, "Yes, I do. Many, in fact. I was just worried about you, Lily. You're so young and impressionable, and when you turned red and wouldn't tell me what was going on, I thought something was wrong. I just wanted to protect you."

"I don't need protecting, Rose," I said. "I know that's hard to believe, but it's true. I'm growing up."

"You're only eleven," she pointed out, but at least she was half-smiling now. "That's not quite so old yet."

I shrugged. "No age is ever going to seem old enough to you; you're my big cousin, after all. But I've got to learn to take care of myself at some point, so why not now?" Rose still seemed uncertain. "Look, Rose, what happened before was a good thing; I promise that you don't have to worry about it."

"Then why can't you tell me?" she asked, and I sighed.

"I just can't, Rose. I'm sorry, but I can't. Maybe in a few years I'll be able to, but not now; I'm not ready yet." She seemed to struggle with that for a moment, but, finally, she nodded her head in grudging acceptance. "Are you still very mad at me?"

"Not very," she replied, "but, yes, I'm still mad. Just give me the night, Lily, and then I'll be fine." I started to walk to the door, but right before I exited, Rose called out, "I love you, Lily, and I'll continue to love you no matter what you're doing. You know that, right?"

It meant a lot to me to hear her say that, but I couldn't completely believe what she said; a part of me still thought she'd change her mind once she found out how much I differed from the Lily she thought she knew. "I love you, too," I called back, exiting and shutting the door behind me.

I leaned against the solid wood of the closed door and felt like crying all of a sudden because, really, why was I having such a problem telling anyone the truth? I firmly believed that what I was doing was right, so why was I keeping so many secrets? Did I really have the courage that the Sorting Hat said I did? Or was I put into Gryffindor simply because I fit into no other House?

I'm not sure how long it took Hugo to find me, but the next thing I remember is his voice asking me, "So you've talked to Céline?"

I looked tearfully up at him--I wasn't sure when I'd sat down, but apparently I had--and asked, "What are you talking about?" I cringed on the inside because my voice sounded so nasally. I hated crying; I hadn't done so for months, or maybe even years.

"Oh, er, you haven't talked to her?" I shook my head. "Then you might want to… avoid her, if possible. She's sort of mad at you right now." Great. Just what I needed. _Another_ person angry with me.

"Why? What did I do?" I asked him, wiping my once again tearful eyes unattractively with my sleeve.

"She's mad that you, er," Hugo said awkwardly, "didn't ice Sophie out. You gave Sophie a Christmas present."

"She's mad that I gave my cousin a Christmas present?" I repeated in disbelief. "I was supposed to ignore my own cousin and not give her a gift?" And, before Hugo could answer, "I didn't even give Sophie a big gift: a pair of earrings from Diagon Alley. It's not something Céline should be mad about."

"I know, she's just… Céline." Hugo shrugged.

"As if that excuses her for being a bitchy prick!"

"Well, she's always been a 'bitchy prick,'" Hugo pointed out. "That's why you used to hate her, remember? You've just been surprisingly safe during your friendship from her anger. And, if it makes you feel any better, she's mad at me, too."

"So we're suffering together?" I asked, and he nodded. "Well, that doesn't really help at all, but at least I still have you, Hugo. I don't know what I'd do without you."

His ears turned bright red. "I, er… don't know what I'd do without you, either," he murmured awkwardly, his voice so low I almost didn't hear him.

That caused me to grin despite my tears. This was most definitely a Christmas miracle. Getting Hugo to act emotionally, I mean, because he, unlike his sister, always became mortified whenever he had to share his feelings.

"Rose had an interesting theory when she first found out that Céline was mad at me as to the reason why," Hugo said suddenly. "She told me that she'd been talking to Céline's Aunt Gabrielle earlier today about Veela and part-Veela, and that Gabrielle had explained quite a bit to her."

"Really?" I asked. "What did she say?"

"She said that Veela feel emotions much more powerfully than humans do, and that part-Veela, when they reach adolescence, have the tendency to take on this trait. Céline's overreacting to everything even more than usual because her hormones and emotions are working like a Veela's now. Every slight disagreement or annoyance turns into the worst betrayal, and every small happiness seems like the most joyous thing to ever happen in the world."

Hugo's explanation answered so many of my questions about why Céline had been acting so oddly lately. This was the reason why she overreacted when Sophie cut her hair, why she was now acting so completely unpredictably in her emotions towards me and Hugo. But, while I was glad to have this understanding, I was also worried that Céline's change might be permanent. So, naturally, the first thing I asked Hugo was, "Is she ever going to go back to normal?"

"With time she'll learn to control her emotions, I think. Auntie Fleur, Gabrielle, Victoire, and Marie all have, and Sophie's close to being able to. Gabrielle said to Rose that, now that Sophie's felt real, lasting pain, the memory of her misery will keep her from feeling so intensely in the future. I just hope it doesn't take Céline as long or cause her as much pain as it did Sophie," Hugo said.

"Me, too." I couldn't imagine what I'd do if Céline, for the next five years, was as selfish as Angelique still was and Sophie had previously been. It was even worse, though, to imagine her mastering emotions under the same conditions that Sophie did; I never wanted to see my best friend ache so much.

Hugo and I eventually returned downstairs, though neither of us was in any mood to celebrate anymore. Céline glared daggers at us when she saw us come down the stairs. She made a point of walking past us, and as she did so, she muttered, "Having so much fun without me, huh?" in an angry, wounded voice. I tried to talk to her, to tell her that neither Hugo nor I had had any fun without her, but she refused to so much as look at me for the rest of the night--or the rest of the holidays, as I soon found out.

She better, I mused the day before school started once again, learn to control her emotions soon, or at least forgive me and Hugo. I missed talking to her, no matter how much of a "bitchy prick" she'd always been, and I knew Hugo felt the same way.

-----

****

A/N: Fast update for you all. :) 

Lily Hermione Potter--Thank you! I hope this latest installment meets your expectations. :)

100-percent-Harry-Potter-obsessed--Thanks! Perhaps she's a combination of both? I never said, after all, that her surname_ reflects her Weasley-ness. ;) _

SmileEmLoveYou--Thanks! I'm sure she'd be glad to hear that you appreciate her quirks, too. ;)

Ramzes--Thank you! Her interactions with Scorpius will become more frequent and more awkward (for him, mostly) as time goes on, but those are the best sorts of conversations. ;) As for Leo, well, he's very tempermental. He, as you pointed out, is more trusting than Crookshanks--mostly because he isn't a part-kneazle like Crookshanks is--but he's also more prone to turning on the people he trusts, like in Hugo's case. The only person who never has to worry is Lily.

Also, with this story, I've got only one relationship completely set in stone at the moment (three guesses which, ;) ) and another I'm inclined to keep, so if you like a particular pairing, let me know. The two might just end up with a more lasting relationship than I originally was going to give them (as long as it doesn't interefere with the plot, of course). :)


	4. When One Door Closes, Another One Opens

_**Disclaimer:** I don't own it._

_**A/N:** I love holidays; they're no limits on how long I can write. :)_

**Chapter 4: When One Door Closes, Another One Opens**

(early January- mid March, First Year)

The train ride back to Hogwarts passed by more pleasantly than I'd expected; James sat in the compartment with me, Rose, Al, and Hugo. Fred stopped by for a few hours, too, and I was surprised to find that he wasn't annoying at all. I soon realized, however, that Fred's change in attitude towards me was due to James' presence only; when James went to the bathroom, Fred immediately became as aggravating as always.

I was tempted to tell James--I was sure James would make Fred regret it--but I didn't want Fred to call me a snitch. Something of my thoughts must've shown on my face, though; Fred lost no time in announcing that he had to meet Savannah and therefore must depart.

"Ha, better go quick, Fred. You don't want your girlfriend to beat you up, do you?" James joked as Fred was closing the door. He turned to the rest of us and said, "She's a scary creature, that Savannah. Powerful, and I don't mean in the magical sense."

"A little afraid of Savannah yourself?" Al asked, grinning.

James shook his head. "Of course not," he said, puffing out his chest arrogantly. "I'm not afraid of anything."

"Except Savannah," Al said in an audible whisper.

"Don't make me hurt you, Al," James warned him, though his words lacked any real force. James quickly became bored without Fred there to talk to him and huffed loudly quite a few times--when he felt neglected or had nothing to do, he wanted people to know it--until he suddenly seemed to have an idea. Turning to me, he said, "It's your turn to choose a topic, you know?"

The others looked confusedly at James, but I immediately understood his meaning. He wanted to play the word game. "Foods?" I asked.

"Nah, we do that too often," he replied, scrunching up his nose at the thought. I could understand his annoyance; whoever was first always ended up winning. There were, after all, only so many "i" foods to choose from.

"Er…" I thought about it for a moment before asking, "Fruits?" James made a gagging motion; he hated any foods that were remotely healthy. "Hey, I don't criticize your topic choices."

"Because I choose good topics." I merely crossed my arms and looked expectantly at him. Sighing a deep, long suffering sigh, James said, "Oh, fine, then. You start."

"Apple."

James took a second to think, then, "Eggplant."

I rolled my eyes. "That's a vegetable, stupid."

"Then the topic should be broadened to include vegetables, too." I opened my mouth to tell him that would make the game too easy, but James quickly cut me off. "Come on, Lily, I'm at a disadvantage otherwise. I don't know any fruits."

He did have a point, though I wasn't happy about admitting it. I'd chosen the topic simply because I _would_ have an easy victory. "Fine. Tomato."

"Orange."

"Endive."

"E… E…" James looked thoughtfully around the compartment as if he would find an "e" fruit/vegetable lying around somewhere. "Er…"

"Endive_s_," I modified for his sake.

"Strawberries."

"Spinach."

"H… Er…" Nearly a minute passed as I waited patiently--well, as patiently as I could. "You know what," James said suddenly, disgruntled. "I give up. There are no bloody fruits or vegetables that begin with the letter 'h.'"

"Honeydew," I said sweetly, and he groaned. I'd just won my second game in little over a week; I was on a roll.

"Bugger that."

"You two are so odd. Has anyone ever told you that?" Rose asked me and James (she, Hugo, and Al had been amusedly watching our game), and I grinned.

"Yeah, I know," I told her. "You're not the first person to tell me that. Or the second. Or even the hundredth," I joked, though that was probably true.

James, however, acted as if he had been mortally wounded. Holding a hand to his heart he melodramatically said, "Well, fine, then. Me and my oddness--"

"My oddness and I," Rose corrected.

James ignored her. "Me and my oddness will be leaving now." As he reached the door, he stopped to say, "But I really do need to go. Make sure Fred's still living and all." With a wink, he left.

Talk in the compartment quickly turned to my upcoming birthday--January 10th--and what I wanted for a gift. I always hated these types of questions because I was horrible at thinking up gift ideas. "You can get me anything you want," I told them over and over again, but they refused to listen.

I wondered suddenly if Céline would forgive me by my birthday, if she would even remember that it was quickly approaching. I knew it'd be foolish to expect that she'd buy me a present, but I didn't need a present as long as we were friends again. That in itself would be present enough for me.

Once the train had arrived at Hogwarts, I soon found out that I wasn't the only first year Gryffindor girl who'd had to face some difficult times over the holidays. Melinda Fudge's grandfather had died of old age on Christmas Eve, and I found her crying in our dormitory when I went upstairs.

"Melinda?" I asked uncertainly. "What's wrong?"

Melinda, startled, jumped slightly and looked guiltily up at me. "S-Sorry, Lily. I'll- I'll be okay in a- in a minute. I just n-n-need…" The rest of her words were lost in a sob.

"What happened?" I asked again, hurrying over to her side.

"My grandfather… he… he died!" she moaned, tears pouring down her face once again. "And Abby's m-mad at me for being sad. She t-told me that…" Again, she broke off in the middle of her sentence to sob. "She told me that I shouldn't be sad; that I- that crying m-made my face look unattractive. S-She said she couldn't have a- a depressed best friend."

"Oh, Melinda, I'm so sorry," I whispered, sitting down next her on the bed and wrapping an arm comfortingly around her.

"W-Why aren't I allowed to- to be sad?" she asked plaintively, leaning on me for support.

"You are allowed to be sad," I assured her. "Abigail had no right to say that to you. If she were any best friend at all she'd be the one comforting you, not the one insulting you." Melinda cried even harder at my words, at the meaning behind them.

"She's n-not usually so bad, you know?" Melinda said, once her tears had started to flow less strongly. "U-Usually she's quite n-nice."

"I can tell," I said dryly, and Melinda gave a hiccupping laugh.

"She's just n-never understood w-what's it's like to… to lose someone," Melinda said in a sad voice. "H-Has anyone you've known ever p-passed away?"

"Yes," I answered. "My best friend when I was little. A girl named Mary Collins."

"I'm sorry." She hesitated for a moment before asking me, "Does the p-pain ever st-stop?" I could tell she feared what my answer would be.

"Not completely, but it gets bearable," I told her truthfully, and I felt her nod her head. "Just give it time."

Eventually Melinda's tears ceased and she fell soundly asleep. I had hoped that, after experiencing Abigail's indifference to everyone else's problems first-hand, she might've gained some sense and stopped allowing Abigail to control her life, but these hopes were crushed the next morning. Melinda was as much Abigail's sidekick as ever, and she pretended not to remember our previous day's conversation. I'd like to think, though, that Melinda didn't quite hate me anymore after that night.

The rest of the week leading up to my birthday passed by in a blur. I awoke on the 10th--thankfully a Saturday--feeling warm and comfortable in my bed, having no desire of getting up at all. Snow was falling lightly outside my window, and I would've been happy to while away my day watching it from under my covers, maybe drawing the scene if I felt up to it. Rose, however, ruined my tranquility within a half an hour later. She burst into my room and, seeing that I was awake, dragged me downstairs. "Come on!" she exclaimed. "Everyone's already waiting for you!"

Everyone was waiting, indeed, I soon saw. James, Al, Rose, Hugo, Marie, and all of my other cousins--except for Céline and Angelique, of course--from a variety of Houses were sitting by the fireplace, surrounding a large pile of presents. I, still in my blue pajamas with the little yellow ducklings on them, blushed deeply when Rose thrust me into the center of the group. All of my family stared expectantly at me; was I supposed to make a speech or something?

"Er, well, twelve years ago from today I was born," I began, and I could instantly tell, from the puzzled looks everyone was giving me, that, no, a speech was not necessary. Yet, I felt it would be even more stupid for me to break off now than to finish, so I continued, "Mummy, on that day, started to have painful, brutal stomach pains that she could hardly bear--or so James always told me--" James grinned sheepishly at that---"and she made a panicked Daddy rush her to St. Mungo's while she screamed the whole time that he wasn't moving fast enough. Eleven hours, twelve minutes, and thirteen seconds--" I'd actually made that number up, but only Al, if his laugh was any indication, seemed to catch that--"I popped out, a pink, slimey, and massively big baby."

"'Massively big?' Yeah, right, Lily," cousin Eros muttered disbelievingly, glancing pointedly at my small frame.

"I was!" I exclaimed defensively. "I weighed over a pound and half more than James or Al! Just look all of Mummy and Daddy's pictures of me as a baby. Actually," I quickly corrected, "don't. They're utterly mortifying."

Hugo laughed. "She's actually telling the truth. Dad and Mum--well not so much Mum--used to be afraid to let me play with her; thought she'd crush me or something."

"Oh, you're such a liar," I accused, playfully smacking his shoulder. He (maturely) stuck his tongue out at me and rubbed his arm as if I had really hurt him.

"Enough stalling, Lily," another cousin called out, "and open the bloody presents already! I'm hungry enough to eat a bloody hippogriff!"

"Language!" James snapped. "Don't blo--Don't swear in front of my baby sister!" Which, I thought, was a bit rich of James, since he used the word "bloody" all the time in front of me.

Ignoring James, I made a face in the general direction of whoever had complained--I couldn't tell for sure who it was. "You can go to breakfast if you want," I said, shrugging, "I don't mind. It was enough that you actually came." Unlike a certain someone else.

There was a mad rush towards the portrait hole. I hadn't expected so many people to actually leave--if I'd known my family would take me seriously, I wouldn't have said anything--but only Rose, Al, James, and Hugo remained after my declaration. I rolled my eyes. What was it about Weasleys and food?

None of my presents really stand out in my mind as anything special. I know that I loved them at the time, that I was thanking the givers over and over again for their thoughtfulness and generosity, but they soon blurred together with all of the other gifts I had received in the course of my lifetime. I do remember, however, returning from breakfast to find one other present on my bed: a new box of charcoals. This had become something of a tradition between me and Teddy, though neither of us ever mentioned it to the other. Teddy would anonymously send me a new set of charcoals for my birthday, and I, in turn, would anonymously send him a completed picture for his birthday. I liked how it was our little secret.

The sole other gift I remember came from a completely unexpected source: Scorpius Malfoy. I hadn't realized that he knew when my birthday was, nor would I have ever expected him to care enough to give me a present, but I was proven wrong in both cases. Sure, his gift was only a single potato, yet it meant more to me than all of my other gifts combined, for it meant that I wasn't just imagining our slow progression to friendship.

I'd been wandering through the hallways in the hopes of seeing Céline when Scorpius called out my name (after glancing about to make sure no one else was in the corridor, of course). "Here," he said, shoving something into my hands when we had reached each other. "A birthday gift."

When I looked down and saw the potato, I couldn't help the laugh that escaped from my lips. "A potato?" I asked, and then sincerely said to him, "Thank you. I don't think I've received such a sweet and simultaneously bizarre gift in my life."

His cheeks turned slightly pink, which, I later found out, was the equivalent of a furious blush for him. "It's nothing. Just something I had lying around."

"You just had a potato lying around?" I repeated, giggling again at the idea. "Happen to have any green beans with it? Because I love those, too."

"Look, if you don't like it--" he began, and I quickly sobered up.

"Oh, don't get mad, I was just teasing you!" I exclaimed, pulling the potato protectively close, afraid he might try to steal it back or something. "It's what friend do, after all."

"Friends?" he repeated, his jaw clenching at the word. "We're not friends, Potter. I just happened to have a spare potato--" it took a lot of self-control for me not to laugh a third time when I heard that--"and since you're obsessed with them, I'd thought I'd give it to you. If I'd known you'd take that as a sign of friendship, I wouldn't have bothered."

I was a little hurt at hearing that, but not enough so that it dampened my spirits. "Oh, come on. You meant that as a sign of friendship and you know it." His face reddened again, but I couldn't tell whether it was from anger or embarrassment this time.

"I did not," he said stiffly, stubbornly.

"Fine, then," I replied, "if you didn't mean it as a show of friendship, then take the damn thing back." I held it out for him, but he didn't take it. Secretly, I was glad of this fact; I really didn't want to give that potato up. As long as he only denied our friendship--though even I would admit that the term had to be used loosely--and didn't take away the symbol of it, I was secure in the knowledge that he cared for me at least somewhat.

"And what, exactly, am I going to do with a potato?" he asked in a drawling voice, sneering at the thing.

"Hm, I don't know." I pretended to think deeply about it for a moment, tapping my finger thoughtfully against my chin. "Eat it, maybe?"

"I don't want to eat it. I don't want it full stop."

"Then we're friends," I said decisively.

"No, we bloody well aren't," he replied with as much certainty.

"Keep telling yourself that, Scorp--" he winced at the nickname--"but it won't change a thing. We both know that you consider me a friend, you big softie!" He opened his mouth to angrily respond, but I started to walk away before he could do so. That was my trick to winning all arguments: I left before my "opponent" could get in his say. "Thanks again for the gift, _friend_."

I could hear him start to follow me, and he managed to shout out, "We're not--!" before I escaped down a hidden passageway that James had once shown me. His footsteps, as he approached the passage where I was hidden, slowed down, remained confusedly silent for a few seconds, then suddenly slapped angrily against the floor as he stalked away.

Once his steps had faded into silence, I let a grin spread across my face. He could say all he wanted to me about this not-caring nonsense, but I now had proof to the contrary. I finally had become friends with a Slytherin; now all I needed to do was get him to admit that he considered me a friend, too.

This took much longer than I anticipated, however. By the middle of February, he still stubbornly insisted that he talked to me: a) because I forced him to, b) because he had nothing better to do, and c) because he wanted to prove that he _didn't_ consider me a friend. I wasn't angry at him, though; I had a lot too much fun trying to get him to admit the truth to be mad.

"You remind me of Mr. Darcy," I once told him during one of my attempts, and he frowned at me in confusion. "From the muggle book _Pride and Prejudice_?" He still looked puzzled. "Don't tell me you've never heard of it!"

"Why would I have heard about a _muggle_ book? Grandfather actively kept me away from that world." I frowned at his tone as he said the word "muggle"--he made it sound dirty, inferior--but, and maybe this was just me being naive, I suspected his condescension had more to do with upbringing than any true anti-muggle sentiment (because who really cared about blood purity anymore?). "And I thought you didn't like reading?" His question immediately "turned my frown upside down," as the cliché goes; it was nice to know that he actually paid attention to me, even when I babbled. I could think of plenty of other people--most of my cousins, for example--who tended to tune out anything I said.

"I didn't read the book. I saw the film," I said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Ahh, of course." He paused for a minute, seemed to brace himself for something painful, then asked, "What's a film?" His pride, I could tell, had taken a blow from having to ask for clarification; Scorpius liked to know everything.

"It's, er, a muggle thing. People, called actors and actresses, pretend to be different people and act out a story that's then shown in cinemas and on televisions," I said lamely. It wasn't at all a good description, but I couldn't think of any other way to explain it.

"That all sounds rather daft," he commented.

"Well, it's better than it sounds," I assured him. "Films're great--well, some are. Others are just dreadful. I'll have to show one to you someday," I said lightly, praying that this wouldn't set him off. He didn't like when I made plans for the two of us; it was too "friendly," he claimed. That day, however, Scorpius didn't seem to mind, if his indifferent shrug was any indication.

Soon after this conversation, February faded into March, and still no admittance of our friendship passed from Scorpius' lips. But, as Hugo's birthday was starting to loom ever nearer and nearer, I had little time to feel disappointed. Céline still hadn't forgiven either of us by that time, and Hugo and I decided there was very little hope that she would by the 7th. Living without her, however--while we both still disliked it--got a little easier; it'd almost become habit by now. I no longer looked sadly at her every few minutes in Transfiguration, which Gryffindors had with Ravenclaws. In fact, I even began to enjoy myself a few times in class, which, I realized, I hadn't done even when Céline was sitting with us.

One day, around March 3rd or 4th, Hugo and I had a particularly amusing Transfiguration class. Professor Burroughs had somehow gotten hold of a collection of plastic muggle dolls, and he wanted us to change them into picture frames. Hugo and I were both having difficulty performing the spell--at least we didn't have to feel stupid anymore about not mastering spells as quickly as Céline, I thought sadly, though this was a small compensation--but I, at least, wasn't jabbing my wand dangerously at the toy.

"Be careful, Hugo," I told him with mock gravity. "You're going to hurt her."

"Good," he responded, prodding the doll with his wand once more. "It'd be nice to get rid of those beady little eyes of hers."

"Ah, don't tell me you're afraid of the doll," I said, laughing. "What could it possibly do to you? Except burst into flames from your violent wand movements, of course."

"I'm not afraid of the doll."

"That's what you always say about bees, but, once you see one, you scream at the top of your lungs and run away." His ears turned bright red and he muttered something about "common sense." "Are you going to do the same thing with the doll?"

"Of course not!" I was worried that I'd offended him, but he added jokingly, "Burroughs'd probably be offended if I did. I bet these dolls are all a part of collection of his." I let out the breath I didn't know I'd been holding in a sigh of relief. Ever since Céline had turned on me, a part of me always worried that I'd say something wrong and cause yet another close friend to hate me.

I laughed again. "Be careful not to hurt yours, then. He needs to be able to change them all back to normal once we're through, or else he can't play with them anymore."

"He'd probably fail us both if we ruined one."

"Or lock us in a dungeon and throw away the key."

"Feed us to a horde of angry trolls."

"Drop us in a nest of dragon eggs."

We looked at each other for a few seconds, then cracked up in unison. Professor Burroughs, hearing our giggling, shot a glare in our direction and snapped for us to stay focused. For reasons still unknown to me, that seemed hilarious and only made us laugh harder. Frustrated that we hadn't listened to him, Burroughs gave us each a detention, and when even that didn't stop us, he kicked us out of the classroom. "Don't come back until you've learned some self-control!" he barked after our retreating forms. "And make sure you master that spell by tomorrow!" He slammed the door shut behind us.

Neither Hugo nor I felt up to the challenge of "learning self-control," so we whiled away the rest of the period by wandering across the Hogwarts' grounds. A few sixth- and seventh-year students were also outdoors, but we ignored them and they ignored us.

"This is my first detention," I suddenly said to Hugo as we were passing the lake. Thin ice still remained along the outer edges of it, and I felt the random urge to knock off a chuck of it with the toe of my shoe.

"Mine, too--well, the first one I've deserved, at least," he responded, no doubt remembering the James incident. "Do you think it'll be as hard as my first?"

"Nah," I answered, shrugging. "James has detention all the time and says you only get the brutal punishments if you do something really, really bad--like blow up fireworks in the middle of class." I couldn't help a small grin.

"That wasn't my fault!" Hugo insisted. "But, at least this one won't be as bad, I suppose."

"And thank Merlin for that fact," I murmured, "I don't think I could handle a detention like your first one." Another silence descended over us--but it wasn't an uncomfortable one. "I wonder if James'll proud or horrified to find out?" I suddenly mused out loud. "I mean, he likes to encourage wrong-doings of any kind, but he always tells me that I should avoid trouble."

"I _know_ Rose'll be horrified. She'll be all--" he made his voice sound high-pitched and girly in a bad imitation of his sister's--"'Hugo! I can't believe you! How could you disrespect a teacher? You deserve detention!'"

"Ah, she's not that much of a prat," I assured him. "Only Priscilla is. Can't imagine what it'd be like to have her for a sister; Perseus must be miserable! But, who cares what she'd say, right? Or what anyone else would say, either, for that matter? We're proud to be troublemakers! Or, at least, I am." I looked expectantly at Hugo.

"I am, too! Only," he asked sheepishly, "we're not really going to make a habit of this, are we?"

"Er, no, I don't think so," I said, suddenly just as uncertain. "Once is enough for now, just to establish our reputation and all."

Hugo looked relieved. "Yeah, once is enough," he agreed.

We must've, I now realize, been the worst troublemakers in the history of the world, for we were both essentially "good" students. Neither of us ever passed in our homework, however poorly done, late; neither of us skipped class and we only rarely arrived after the bell had rung; neither of us was habitually disrespectful to our teachers or disruptive to our classes (James' fireworks and the previous Transfiguration class being the only exceptions to this); and neither of us was failing any class (except, perhaps, for History of Magic).

Still, it was nice to call ourselves troublemakers for a time. We had the tendency to brag about our detention--in which we spent less than an hour helping a calmed down Professor Burroughs organize his office (he even asked our opinion, at the end, on whether or not he had "overreacted" because we were usually such well-behaved students). Or, we did until Fred told us to knock it off--our bragging, I mean--before we "besmirched the name of troublemakers everywhere" even more than we already had. Harsh words, but I couldn't really expect anything nicer from Fred.

When Hugo's birthday came and went without any interaction between Céline and us, I finally gave up the attempt to regain our old friendship. I had reached the limit that I was willing to bend for her; even if she had at that point come to me, apologized, and begged on her knees for my forgiveness, I wasn't sure I'd be able to give it. An admission of guilt seemed unlikely, though; she had clearly moved on from her friendship with me and Hugo when she became an Angelique-like clone. She now flirted with boys and angered girls everywhere she went. I was vindictively happy, therefore, when a girl "accidentally" spilled some boiling-hot, half-finished potion on Céline during a Potions class, for she had to spend three days in the Hospital Wing recovering. I might've been upset had life-threatening or permanent damage been inflicted on her, but, since she'd be fine so quickly, I could muster very little sympathy.

Still, when she hadn't returned to her classes in time for History of Magic, I felt obligated to make her a copy of my notes. She had, after all, allowed me to borrow her notes often during the first half of the school year; I owed her the same consideration, even if we were no longer friends. I even made sure that my notes were especially detailed, though it took all of my self-control to force myself to listen to Binns. Usually I zoned in and out, jotting a few scattered facts down every once in a while, but I knew Céline would never accept such incomplete work.

"You shouldn't be so nice to her," Hugo told me, but my conscience wouldn't leave me alone. I was sure none of her fellow Ravenclaws would lend her their notes; they'd love to see beautiful, clever Céline lose her top grades. Hugo and I weren't, after all, the only first years who disliked her now; we were, however, the only ones who had familial ties to her. We _had_ to love her, no matter how much she annoyed us. I mean, I hated Priscilla, for example, but I stilled loved her underneath it all.

Céline had the curtains drawn around her bed in the Hospital Wing, but, although Hugo whispered that we should probably leave her alone, I pushed the shades fearlessly aside. Gone were the days when I'd cower at the thought of making her even angrier with me. Céline lay pouting in the bed with fading burn marks marring her otherwise flawless skin. Her eyes, narrowing, snapped towards me and Hugo. "Come to gloat?" she asked coldly.

"No, actually," I answered, struggling not to snap right back at her. "I came to bring you the notes from our History of Magic class." I pulled out the bundle of parchment on which I'd copied everything down for her and handed it over to her.

She seemed baffled as she took them. "Why?"

"Because I don't want you to fail," I told her shortly, shrugging. "I'm not _that_ cruel, you know?"

"I know," she said softly, and I suspected she hadn't meant for me to hear that. She cast her blue eyes downward, and started to read. Her expression became progressively more shocked as she scanned farther down the page. "I don't understand. These are good."

"And?" I asked, frowning. What was she trying to imply?

"Usually you don't take detailed notes. Did you, er…" She cleared her throat. "Did you do that for me?" My only response was a shrug. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "It really means a lot to me."

Oh, no, I thought to myself. I saw where she was going with this, and I refused to let it happen. She had had plenty of time to restore our friendship before this point, but it was now too late for her to apologize and expect everything to go back to normal. Things _couldn't_ got back to normal anymore.

"Well, we should go," I announced as she opened her mouth, cutting off what I knew she was about to say. Hugo nodded his agreement.

"No, wait!" Céline called out, and my feet stopped of their own accord. "I'm sorry, Lily, Hugo," she whispered, clearly expecting us to welcome her back with open arms. Knowing her, she probably thought my notes were meant as an apology, as if I had done something wrong.

"Sorry's not enough. Not anymore." Surprisingly, it was Hugo that said this. I understood exactly what he meant.

"It's like I have this tornado of emotion in my head, spinning around and messing everything up," she continued as if Hugo hadn't spoken. I knew that she thought she could somehow avoid the truth by ignoring his words, and I felt her pain--really, I did--but that couldn't change anything or absolve her of her guilt. "I can't control it. I'll know I'm overreacting, but I can't stop myself." Her voice broke. "It's so hard, so confusing, and I don't know what to do. I've asked Angelique for help, but she just tells me to follow where it leads. Well, I don't want to 'follow where it leads' anymore."

"Then talk to your other sisters, Céline," I told her, "They can help better than Angelique can. And maybe," I added, seeing her face fall, "then, when neither of us has to walk on eggshells around you, we can be friends again."

"I want things to go back to the way they were," she moaned, tears spilling from her eyes. I could feel the tears starting to trail down my own face, as well, leaving salty tracks in their wake.

"Things can never be the same again. It's too late for that."

"Isn't there anything I can do?" she asked.

"I don't know," I confessed. "Maybe? But," I said, my resolve never weakening with my sorrow, "you'll have to do whatever it is on your own." I turned to Hugo. "I've got nothing else to say. How about you?"

"I'm done, too," he answered resolutely, refusing to look back at the bed. Even he seemed close to tears, though he often liked to claim that he never cried.

Again, Céline called out to us as we attempted to leave, saying, "I wanted to be with you in Burroughs class, you know? When you laughed so hard that he kicked you both out? I wanted to be with you two so much that it hurt!" but neither of us stopped for her a second time.


	5. Learning to Give Second Chances

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own it._

**Chapter 5: Learning to Give Second Chances**

(mid March- June, First Year)

Céline was released from the Hospital Wing with a clean bill of health on the following Friday, though I noticed that Madame Longbottom, the sweet and matronly wife of Professor Longbottom, waited until after her Potions class had finished to discharge her. No doubt she feared the idea of another "accident" occurring--which actually wasn't that unlikely, I acknowledged. Céline would be the type to seek revenge.

I dreaded the upcoming Potions class almost as much as Madame Longbottom did, though for an entirely different reason. Potions was the first class that I'd have with Céline since our talk in the Hospital Wing, and I had no idea what I should expect from her. Would she still seek the forgiveness I couldn't yet give her, or would she hate me again for refusing to bow to her will? I tried to tell myself it didn't matter, but I knew that was a lie; I cared very much, and it was turning me into a bundle of nerves. Potions, when it finally came, was therefore something of a relief. I no longer had to live in anxious anticipation; I could finally know for sure where I stood with Céline.

Hugo and I arrived to class more than ten minutes earlier than we usually did, but we still weren't the first to get there. Céline, standing uncertainly in the back of the classroom, was already waiting; she clearly had no idea where she was supposed to sit: with me and Hugo, or alone. Her eyes, when she heard the door open, snapped towards us, and for a second we all stood frozen and mute. Hugo was the first to move, and I quickly joined him as he made his way to our customary table near the middle of the room.

Céline looked disappointed, as if we had let her down somehow instead of the other way around, but she quickly masked her pain. "Hello!" she greeted us in a falsely cheerful voice. From the slightly nasally way her voice resounded out, I guessed that she had been crying, and the idea saddened me--which was probably why, when Céline hesitantly asked, a few moments later, if she could sit with us, I said yes almost immediately. Sure, I had spoken unenthusiastically, but that was, at least, better than a full-out rejection.

Céline seemed to be of the same opinion. She rushed over to the two of us as fast as she could and plopped down in the empty seat beside as if she thought we might take away her permission if she didn't act quickly enough. "Thanks," she murmured, a small smile gracing her face.

I shrugged as if it didn't matter, and the next few moments were spent in yet another awkward silence. Hugo, sitting on my other side, crossed his arms. He, like I, was waiting for Céline to make the first move; we had meant it when we told her she had to fix this without our help.

All of a sudden, Céline's face lit up, and she plunged her hand into schoolbag. Out came a thin, light blue box--I wondered, randomly, how in the world she'd managed to keep it from being squashed; her bag was nearly overflowing with books--which, we saw when she pulled the lid off, held an array of delectable-looking French desserts. "Victoire made them," she explained, "when she heard that I was in the Hospital Wing." And then, waving the box temptingly in front of our faces, "Please, take as many as you'd like."

Hugo certainly looked ready to take one--one? He looked ready to take them _all_--but I firmly shook my head in response. "No, thank you," I told her, though the aroma was making my mouth water.

"Er, none for me, either," I heard Hugo say resignedly, and I turned questioningly toward him. I didn't mind if he took any, and I was about to tell him so, until I saw the resolute look in his eyes. Food wasn't going to win him over as easily as Céline had imagined it would.

"Oh." Her voice betrayed surprise. "Okay, then. I'll just, er, put the box away, I guess." She, taking her time--no doubt trying to give herself longer to come up with some conversation starter--proceeded to do just that. "Er, have you, er, ever noticed that, when someone in the family bakes you something and likes what she's baked, that she'll eat a little bit of the food and then openly admit that she did, as if that would somehow make the fact that she ate part of it okay?"

I stared blankly at her; I had no idea what she had just tried to say. Beside me, I heard Hugo ask, "_What_? I didn't understand one word of that."

Blushing, Céline hastened to explain herself. "Victoire, er, when she sent me the box of desserts, wrote in her letter to me that she had 'sampled' quite a few of them--and by quite a few, I mean half of them. She seemed to think that it was okay, you know, that she ate so many because she had at least told me that she had eaten them. It's a bit daft of her, don't you think?"

"Not really. I mean, she _did_ make them in the first place," Hugo pointed out. "And she could've eaten all of them and not given any to you if she wanted to you. You should be more thankful to her."

Céline looked stricken. "I'm not--I wasn't--I am thankful to her!" she insisted.

"You don't seem thankful," Hugo muttered, but I gave him a sharp look. I agreed with what he was saying, but I was annoyed at how openly he was antagonizing her; he was better than that. "Sorry," he told me, "I just think Victoire's entitled to eat the stuff she herself made."

"You would think that," I said, grinning and poking his arm playfully to show that I wasn't angry.

"That's only because, if he ever baked desserts for someone, he'd eat most of them, too," Céline added, trying to continue the joke, but neither Hugo nor I laughed. She wasn't yet entitled to tease either of us, especially not Hugo.

"No, I wouldn't," he said defensively, and Céline once again looked wounded. She murmured something about "taking the mickey" and "not serious," but Professor Gravissimus entered the room at that moment and she didn't have time to finish her apology--if that's even what she was mumbling out.

Professor Gravissimus was quite possibly the oddest teacher--aside from Professor Binns, the sole ghost on the staff--that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry employed. He was such a bizarre mixture of seriousness and light-heartedness that most students had no idea what to make of him. During his classes, absolute silence was essential at all times--he didn't, he said at least once a class, want anyone to "disrupt the fragile atmosphere that is vital to making of effective potions" through chatter--and he expected his students, if they had to communicate while brewing their potions, to either pass notes or mime out their thoughts (I had a lot of fun with the latter of the two). Yet, for all his strict discipline when it came to his no-talking rule, Professor Gravissimus was by far the easiest grader that I'd ever had. Even I, dreadful potion-maker that I was, had a solid "E" to show for the year.

"Silence, everyone," Professor Gravissimus called out, though he needn't have done so. The class had long since learned to become quiet once he entered the room. I wondered if Céline would try to mime out whatever she'd been trying to say--though she'd never been as big a fan of this method as I--or write a note, but she did neither; perhaps, in her sorrow, she didn't remember these options.

I expected that Céline would, however, burst out her apology or excuse--whichever it was--the minute the bell rang to signal the end of class, but all she muttered was a hasty, "Bye!" before she hurried from the room. I heard rumors later that day that Céline had been caught crying in the girls bathroom, and I wondered if Hugo and I had been too harsh to her. I hadn't wanted to make her cry or suffer; I'd only wanted her to give me proof before I accepted her back that she wouldn't fly off the handle again the next time I annoyed her.

Céline, from then on, remained silent in the classes we had together. She still sat next to me, with Hugo on my other side, but she never tried to take part in the conversations I had with him. I wanted to tell her not to give up, to keep trying, because her easy defeat only made us seem all the less important to her.

The day before Easter holidays, I gave up my silly resolution to make Céline prove herself on her own. With her intensified, Veela-like emotions running rampant, I was afraid she'd slip too far into a depression without my help. "Go see Marie," I advised her at the end of Transfiguration, "if you want to become friends again. She can help."

I spent the Easter holidays expecting Marie to make some reference to me about whether or not she had talked to Céline, but none came. I began to wonder if Céline had even listened to me before, and I tried to seek her out to repeat my advice, but I could no longer find her now that I wanted to; she seemed to have disappeared over the holidays. I even wondered briefly if she'd chosen to go home for the holidays, though students very rarely did; most wanted to stay at Hogwarts to study for their end of the year exams. I'd assumed that Céline, especially, would choose the latter option, but perhaps I was wrong.

Not that all of my time was spent searching for Céline, of course. Most of it was spent on studying and reviewing my year's notes, though I was prone to take long breaks every couple of hours. My temperament couldn't handle reading notes for hours nonstop; I needed to stretch my legs and breathe in fresh air. During one of these breaks, when I happened to be walking by the lake, I came across Alice relaxing in the sun with a few of her fourth-year friends. When she saw me, she immediately stood up and hurried over to join me.

"Hey, Lily!" she, practically glowing with happiness, greeted me. "It's been ages; how've you been?"

"I've been better," I answered, though this was quite the understatement. Truthfully, I felt as if my life had recently become a living nightmare. "You?"

"I've been okay," she said modestly, though I could tell she, too, was downplaying her emotions. Unlike me, however, she couldn't keep up the charade. "Oh, who am I kidding? I've been _wonderful_, Lily, absolutely wonderful!"

"Really? That's great." I meant it, too, though I felt a little jealous that I couldn't be as happy.

"Don't you want to know why?" she asked, but she, eager to share her news, continued before I could get in any reply. "Perseus asked me to go to Hogsmeade with him next weekend!"

"My cousin Perseus?" Alice nodded. "Asked you out on a _date_?" Again, she nodded, and I felt my jaw drop. "And did you say yes?"

"Of course!" she answered, giggling. "Why would I ever say no?"

"But I thought you fancied James!"

"I do," Alice said with a shrug, her happiness deflating somewhat at the mention of James, "but that doesn't mean I can't date someone else."

My mind was reeling. "It doesn't?" I asked, dumbfounded, because it had never occurred to me, at twelve, that a girl could fancy one person and still chose to date another. The very idea struck me as illogical.

Alice was now the shocked one. "No, not at all! A girl can date anyone she wants to, Lily! Her choices would be so limited if she could only date boys she fancies. Not that I don't fancy Perseus," she quickly added, seemingly afraid that I'd get the wrong impression, "because I do. I'd just never… noticed, I guess, that I fancied him until now. He's quite the catch, though." I snorted at the thought; I'd never yet heard the word "catch" associated with Perseus before. "No, really, he is! Did you know he tutors first-year students in the library on Saturday mornings?" She smiled in an isn't-that-just-so-sweet way.

"I didn't," I told her, "but that does sound like something he'd do."

"He wants to be a Healer when he grows up," she confided, smiling even more widely. "He told me that he wants to be able to help people." James, I knew, dreamed of nothing more than taking over Weasley Wizard Wheezes with Fred as his business partner. Maybe Perseus was better suited to her, after all; at least his ambition was one that she could proudly spread around.

"Well," I relented, "I suppose he's not that bad of a choice. He's not as overbearing as his sister or as pompous as his father, at least."

Alice laughed at that. "That's good to hear," she said, her eyes twinkling. "I don't know what I'd do if he was as horrible as that sister or father of his. But, Lily," she asked, suddenly becoming serious, "you don't mind if I date him, do you?"

I frowned. "Why would I mind?"

"Well, you know, you've always she that you wanted me to date James," she mentioned awkwardly, refusing to meet my eyes. "I don't want to disappoint you."

"Oh, don't worry about that," I hastened to assure her. I was, as horrible as I knew it sounded, a little pleased that she had given up on James; while I'd have rather shared my big brother with her than any other girl, I still preferred sharing him with no one at all, no matter how selfish that was of me. "As long as your happy, I'm happy. And, if you date Perseus, you could still potentially become a part of my family; you'd just be a cousin instead of a sister."

"Well, I'll always think of you as a sister in my mind, regardless of whom I marry." Which was an incredibly corny, but it put a smile on my face nonetheless.

"I feel the same way," I told her, and we hugged once more. "Just promise me you'll tell me all about your date, okay?" I'd never been on a date--nor had I even thought about going on one before this point--so the idea intrigued me; I wanted to hear all she had to say.

"I'll tell you everything," she vowed.

Alice, when the time came to fulfill this promise, outdid all of my expectations. Everything from the expressions on Perseus' face to setup of the silverware at the restaurant he brought her to--some place called the Mademoiselle Puddifoot's--were explained in minute detail by Alice. The thought was nice, but, to tell the truth, she used a little too _much_ detail. I was bored within the first five minutes--which is why, when I heard her mention the name "Scorpius Malfoy," I had no idea what she'd been talking about.

"What was that?" I asked, hardly able to contain my interest. "What did you say about Scor--about Malfoy?"

"Huh? Oh, when we went to the Three Broomsticks later that day for two butterbeers, he and some of his Slytherin friends were sitting at the table next to us, celebrating his birthday." I panicked, when I heard that, that I had missed Scorpius' birthday--why had I never taken the time to learn it before now? He had known the date of my birthday, after all--but Alice continued, "They were really quite rowdy, and his birthday's not even until the 23rd. I'd hate to be there when the real day comes around." She shuddered at the thought, and I breathed out a sigh of relief; I still had time.

My relief, of course, was not long-lived. Scorpius' birthday begged the question of what I was going to get him for a gift, and that was not an easy problem to solve. It had to be something worthwhile, something memorable, something that could live up to his potato--which, yes, did sound a bit ridiculous, I realize. I heard even less of Alice's story, lost in thought as I was, than I had before, and I eventually excused myself in order to think in the quiet of my own dormitory.

Thankfully, Abigail and Melinda weren't in the dormitory when I arrived, so I was able to spend nearly three hours thinking of possible gifts without distraction. I never quite found one that was perfect, but I did, at least, come up with a decent idea during that time. I knew that this present was nowhere near as thoughtful as his had been, but I also knew that I wouldn't be able to think of anything better by April 23rd, not if I wanted to give him his present on his actual birthday.

I went to Rose the very next morning--I needed her help to get the gift--and asked to buy her copy of _Pride and Prejudice_. She looked at me as if I'd gone completely bonkers. "Don't you have an aversion to reading?" she asked.

"Well, yes," I said, "but I still need it."

"You're not going to mutilate it or anything, are you? Because," she said, "I don't think I could take that sort of damage being to such a classic."

"I'm not going to mutilate it," I assured her. I was a bit offended that she even had to ask; did she really think I'd do something so childish? Sure, I might've disliked reading, but it not as if I had a vendetta against it.

"Well, okay, then, I suppose you can borrow it," she said uncertainly.

"No, I don't want to borrow it, I want to buy it."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Lily, you're my cousin, I'm not going to make you pay for the book."

"I _need_ to pay for the book," I told her, which was true. The gift would lose it's meaning if I'd gotten _Pride and Prejudice_ for free. "It, er, has to do with 'nothing,' Rose, okay?" I added reluctantly when I saw how stubborn she was going to be about this.

"_Oh_." Understanding flashed through her eyes. "All right, then, two sickles." Two sickles, I knew, was still cheaper than the amount she had paid for the book, but I didn't argue any further; Scorpius' gift couldn't have cost him more than a few knuts, after all.

Once I had gotten his present in order, I was actually quite excited about his upcoming birthday. I hadn't had the chance to talk to him recently, and I rather missed him. I even toyed with the idea of telling him how I felt--just to see how he'd react, I told myself--before deciding against it. His anger wouldn't be worth his embarrassment.

April 23rd turned out to be a Thursday, so I didn't have to time to search for him until after classes were finished for the day. I found him wandering near the library with a raucous group of third-year friends, and I figured I should probably want to talk to him until he was on his own. I might've been an essentially optimistic girl, but that didn't mean I was daft. Only a complete idiot would willingly walk up to a group of unruly fourteen-year-old boys, Slytherin or otherwise.

When nearly ten minutes passed, however--during which I followed them from a safe distance--and they made no move to leave Scorpius alone, I decided to try a different route. I used yet another short-cut that James had taught me to reach the end of the hallway before they did, and then I hid myself in a small niche in the wall and waited. Scorpius, thankfully, happened to be lagging a little behind the others when they passed me by, and I was able to pull him into the nook without attracting his friends' notice.

"What do you think you're doing?" he hissed, quickly glancing around the alcove as if someone else would be able to fit in the small, enclosed space. I rolled my eyes at him stupidity. "Do you _want_ to make me an outcast for life?"

"Well, _sorry_," I muttered, not feeling sorry at all. "Next time I'll talk to you right in front of all your little--" which was a bit rich of me since the even smallest of his friends looked like a fairly large boulder--"friends because I'm sure they'd love that, right?"

His face got so panicked when he heard my words that, despite my anger, I let out a small giggle. "I get your point. You just startled me is all. So, er, what do you want?" he asked slowly, trying to avoid angering me further. Had he really believed that I'd do something so drastic as approach his friends?

"I wanted to wish you a happy birthday, of course, and to give you my present." I smiled and shoved the neatly-wrapped--Rose's doing; I was a miserable present-wrapper--gift into his hands. "Do you like the wrapping paper?" It had little multicolored balloons and the words "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"--written, of course, in obnoxiously big letters--all over it.

He looked down when he heard my question and winced. "Yeah, it's, er, really something."

I laughed. "I knew you would. Now, go on, open you're present!" I exclaimed, perhaps a little too loudly because Scorpius' face once again became panicked as he glanced fearfully at the small opening of the alcove.

Once he had ascertained that no one had heard me, he ripped the wrapping paper off of the present in one swoop. The paper slowly fell to the floor as he stared at the book in his hand. "You got me _this_?" he asked, finally looking up to meet my eyes and raising an eyebrow. "The muggle book that you're obsessed with?"

"Well, it's actually the film that I like, and I'm not sure the word 'obsessed' would describe my feelings for it--'obsessed' is a bit too strong--but, for the purposes of our conversation, yes, it's the muggle book I'm obsessed with."

"Do I actually have to read it?" he asked, frowning.

"Well, no, you don't _have_ to read it. I'd certainly appreciate it if you did, though," I replied.

"That's not much incentive to read the book, then, is it?" he asked, but somehow I knew, given his cheeky response, that he would end up reading it. He would have said something much crueler if he had honestly hated his gift.

"Manners, Scorpius," I chided him playfully. "That was a very rude thing to say. And," I added, "speaking of rude, don't you have something you'd like to tell me? Something that starts in 'thank' and ends in 'you,' maybe?"

Rolling his eyes, Scorpius said, "Thank you." I'd like to think that he meant it.

"You're welcome!" I chirped, smiling proudly, for this had gone just as well as I hoped--and maybe even better. I was very pleased with myself--and with him, of course, for being such a good recipient. "Now, can we get out of here?" I asked suddenly. "I'm getting pins and needles in my legs."

"Er, let me check." He stuck his head carefully out of the niche to make sure that no one was around, and then turned back towards me and nodded his head. "Yeah, the hallway's clear."

"Thank Merlin," I muttered, following him out and stretching my legs to relieve the numbness. After a few seconds, my blood started to pump through my legs again and the pain faded away. "Oh, look," I said, turning my eyes to gaze out of the window, "the sun's setting."

The view through the window was remarkably beautiful; the sky progressed smoothly from a vivid crimson to a soft pink to a deep violet. I soaked it in for a few seconds, and then I closed my eyes.

"What are you doing?" I heard Scorpius ask from my left. Opening one of my eyes, I questioningly turned to face him. He was staring back at me confusedly.

"I was watching the sunset, of course," I told him as I closed my eye again. What else could I have been doing?

"With your eyes closed?"

"My Auntie Luna once told me that, whenever I see something truly beautiful, I should close my eyes," I explained, "in order to learn empathy. Blind people can never see the magnificence of a sunset, so, by closing my eyes, I can gain some perspective of what that must be like for them."

There was a pause after I said that. "Every time," Scorpius eventually said, and his voice sounded a little hoarse--I wondered if he was coming down with a cold--"_every_ bloody time, that I talk to you…" he trailed off, and my eyes snapped open. He was gaping at me.

"Every time you talk to me what?" I asked. "You can't leave off your sentence there."

He didn't answer me, and I began to doubt that he himself knew how to finish his sentence. "I have to go," he said suddenly.

"Er, bye, then?" I said uncertainly, but he hurried off before I could finish talking.

I was utterly confused, for I had no idea what I'd done wrong; had I offended him in some way? He hadn't seemed annoyed or angry with me during our conversation, but I couldn't think of any other reason for his abrupt departure. I was just as baffled by his behavior as I'm sure he was by mine.

I didn't see much of Scorpius after that birthday disaster, and I talked to him even less. I had the suspicion that he was avoiding me because, in the few conversations that we did have, he would always find some excuse to quickly leave--especially if I asked him about his unfinished sentence--or he would feign deafness and pretend not to hear anything I'd say. I doubted, however, that he did this to gain some perspective on deafness, as he once had the audacity to claim (after I cornered him in the library and demanded to know why he was ignoring me).

Yet, his snubs, while they annoyed me, were not foremost on my mind during the last few weeks of school. I had other, slightly more important worries to occupy my time, such as studying for my rapidly approaching exams. I went so far as to give up drawing as the month of May came to a close in order to limit all of the distractions that took up the time I might've otherwise used to review my notes. Even Céline was pushed to the back of my mind during this time--or, at least, she was until Marie, pulling me aside in the Gryffindor Common Room on the last day of May, brought her up.

"We need to talk," she told me, and I rose an eyebrow--or tried to, at least, because I hadn't quite mastered that expression yet. "About Céline." Understanding quickly spread across my face; I had, in light of my upcoming exams, forgotten all about my advice to Céline. "She's been coming to see me for the past two months, you know?" I didn't, but I nodded my head anyway. "Well, she's made a lot of progress recently, and I think you should give your friendship another chance."

"So she won't overreact anymore?" I asked hopefully, but Marie only shrugged.

"Who knows? She might occasionally still overreact." And then, seeing my expression, "Don't you dare judge her, Lily Ginevra Potter! _Everyone_, part-Veela or otherwise, overreacts once in a while. It's unavoidable."

"I don't care if she has normal overreactions, Marie. I just don't want her to have another three-month-long overreaction."

"That," Marie said, "I can safely say won't happen again. She's got a good enough handle over her emotions to avoid that. But, you know, this is never going to be easy for her; even I have trouble holding my Veela reflexes at bay sometimes. She needs support, Lily, from both you and Hugo, especially since I'm not going to be here next year." I blinked in confusion until I remembered that, as a seventh-year student, Marie would be finishing school this year. "Can you give her that support?

"I'll try," I promised because that's all I could really guarantee at this point. "But we'll have to start back at the beginning and work our way forward from there."

"All I'm asking from you is a try. Thank you." Marie gave me a small smile and left.

Although I knew that Marie wanted me to find Céline straightaway, I waited until after exams to sort things out. Neither of us, I thought, could deal with the stress that a half-healed friendship would provide before our exams were finished. Once our exams were done, however, no opportunity to talk to Céline presented itself to me until the night before we were set to return back home, by which point, I'm ashamed to admit, I had all but given up hope.

"Céline!" I called out, eager not to lose this chance, and she, taken aback, turned around.

"Yes?" she asked uncertainly, seeming almost afraid of what I had to say.

"I just wanted to say that, well, I think we should start over. Go back to the beginning and move forward from there." She didn't say anything, so I continued awkwardly, "Er, well, my name's Lily Potter. And you are?"

She stared suspiciously at me for another few seconds before a wide smile broke out on her face. "I'm Céline Weasley. It's a pleasure to meet you."

-----

_**A/N:**__ Finally, the end of first year! Only six more years left to write (and then all of her adult life, too). ;)_

_I'm sad to say that I probably won't be able to update as often as I have these past few days. Break ends tomorrow, and school will unfortunately have to take precedent over writing. :(_


	6. Rainbows and Storms

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own it._

_**A/N:**__ New chapter! Here's to hoping that the next one isn't as difficult to write (I got such a case of writer's block halfway through this chapter)._

**Chapter 6: Rainbows and Storms**

(Summer, Second Year)

Once, when I was young and Mary Collins' death still felt like a raw, throbbing wound inside of me, I asked Dad how I would know when I was better. He, unsure of how to respond, muttered something about me just one day knowing that everything was all right, but I wasn't satisfied with his answer; I wanted more concrete proof. Auntie Luna was the one to finally give me that.

"My mother," she said to me in that dreamy voice of hers, "once told me that the Heavens send down signs to answer our questions and guide us through life; one simply has to keep an open eye to find them."

"What will my sign be?" I asked, eagerly latching on to her solution.

She paused thoughtfully for a moment, then said, "A rainbow. Rainbows signal the end of storms."

Ever since that moment, I had loved rainbows, had lived for those rare moments when I caught a glimpse of one. James and Al had laughed at me and told me that I was daft when I shared this with them, but their ridicule did little to upset me; I knew that Auntie Luna was right. A rainbow would always appear when all in my world was well.

I saw a rainbow in the sky during my second week back home, while Céline was in the middle of sharing her "deepest, darkest, dirtiest" secret with me. That was how I knew that our friendship had healed, that everything was all right between the two--two, not three, because Hugo was still distrustful of Céline--of us.

"Oh, Lily, it's just not fair!" Céline's voice melodramatically exclaimed as we lay side by side in the grass, still wet as it was from the three-day long rainstorm. "I finally understand why Sophie was so devastated by his rejection! I would've been, too!"

"Come on, Céline," I said, rolling my eyes. "You are not in love with Roger Davies." I couldn't understand why every one of my part-Veela cousins was falling for this boy; what was so special about him?

Céline let out a loud huff of annoyance. "You don't understand. Every time that I so much as think about him, breathing becomes harder and my skin starts to tingle. If that's not love, I don't know what is!"

"That's infatuation, not love. There's a difference." Although, if I was completely honest with myself, I didn't know the difference, either; I was just repeating what I'd seen on television and films.

"You're just mad that he's five years older than me," Céline muttered petulantly, as if this fact had no importance whatsoever. I felt like I was dealing with Rose's crush on Teddy all over again.

I turned onto my side to face her. "What? You don't think that alone is valid enough of a reason to stay well away from Roger?" I asked disbelievingly. "Because, if you don't, you should really see a therapist or something."

"It's not that big of an age difference, Lily. When I'm ninety and he's ninety-five, no one will think that I'm too young for him."

I laughed at that. "Right, well, if you still love him in seventy-eight years, then I promise I'll give you my blessing."

"Ugh, you're hopeless!" Céline said, shaking her head disgustedly. "Let's talk about something else; you're lack of compassion is depressing me."

I rolled myself back to my original position and shrugged. "Okay, what do you want to talk about?"

"Your deepest, darkest, dirtiest secret," she answered immediately, eagerly. I could tell that this was the part of our discussion that she had really been looking forward to. "It's only fair that you share, since I told you mine."

There were many "deepest, darkest, dirtiest" secrets that I could have told her about--my drawings, my friendship with Scorpius Malfoy, my desire to be in Slytherin--but I settled on a safer, yet still sufficiently "dark," option. "I was secretly a little happy when Alice chose to go out with Perseus because it meant that she had given up pining for James."

"Ooh, this is going to be a good one, I can tell," Céline said, and she cracked her fingers as if she were preparing herself for a fight--an assessment which, I thought, maybe wasn't as far off the mark as I wished it were. "I'll start with the easy questions, and we'll work our way up from there."

"Hey!" I exclaimed, flailing my leg out in an attempt to kick her. I missed. "I didn't ask you hard questions!"

"Well, that's your fault, not mine, isn't it?" I didn't have to glance over at her to know that she was smiling deviously. "So, first things first: do you like Alice?"

"Yes! She's the sweetest, most thoughtful, most caring--"

"Okay, I get the point," Céline interrupted. "No need to give me a lecture about her." I elbowed her in the side in mock anger, but she took insult to that. "Hey! No need to resort to violence!" She elbowed me back twice as hard before I could move away, then asked, "How did you respond when Alice first told you the news?"

"I was a little shocked at first--I mean, she never used to pass up the chance to ramble on to me about how perfect James was--but she looked she so happy that I was happy for her. It was only after I had thought about what her dating Perseus meant that I began to be happy for other reasons."

"And what were--are--those other reasons?" Céline asked, and I squirmed uncomfortably. "Oh, don't be like that. You brought this on yourself when you elbowed me."

"Well, I began to realize that--if Alice didn't, you know, fancy James anymore--I wouldn't ever have to share him with her," I said simply, but I knew Céline would understand the volumes of feeling that went along with that thought. It wasn't too long ago that she was smarting over Victoire's engagement to Teddy, after all. "And I know that's selfish and horrible of me, but I can't help it. I don't want my big brother--my protector, idol, hero--to become hers instead."

"You're not being selfish, Lily--well, no, you are being selfish--but that's only because you're human and can't help it; it's natural for you to feel this way." Céline's tone was no longer teasing; it was sympathetic.

I still felt uneasy, guilty, but I nodded my head anyway. "Of course it is."

"No, Lily," Céline said, sitting up so that she could look down at me, "you need to understand this. It is natural. I felt exactly the same that you do--still do, as a matter of fact. Are you saying that I'm purposely being selfish?"

"Of course not!" I quickly assured her. "You're a part-Veela--"

"This emotion's entirely human, trust me," Céline said bitterly.

I had no idea how to respond to Céline's words, so I was thankful when Mum interrupted the two of us to tell Céline that Auntie Fleur wanted her back home. Céline's Aunt Gabrielle had come to Shell Cottage to spend a night, and she wanted to see her nièce favorite. "Our dinner is ready, as well, love," Mum added when I made no move to enter our house, and I quickly sprung up from the ground.

I drew Scorpius Malfoy for the first time later that night because, for reasons inexplicable to me, Céline's talk of love and Roger Davies had brought him back to the forefront of my mind. I had thought, once I'd started, that I would have difficulty remembering exactly what he looked like, but this couldn't have been further from the truth; I had little trouble at all making the sketch a believable representation of him.

While I was lost in my own little world of drawing Scorpius, Al came barging into my room with Leo in his arms. I feared for a few seconds that he'd catch sight of the sketch in my hand and immediately recognize the figure, but he did nothing of the sort. He merely complained that Leo had been annoyingly affectionate lately, following him everywhere. "I wouldn't mind," Al continued, "but he's not a small kitten anymore. He practically suffocates me every time he sits on me."

I resented that--the insinuation that my cat was fat--but I could hardly deny what he was saying; Leo had gained weight, and very suddenly too. "Suffocation is a bit of an exaggeration, Al."

"Says you," he replied back, dropping Leo none too gently on my bed. Leo immediately scrambled off and started to rub Al's calf lovingly with his furry black face. "Merlin, why won't he leave me alone already?"

"Because he loves you," I said, grinning at Al's disgusted expression. "My cat L-O-V-E-S's you, Albus Severus Potter."

"Shut up," Al said embarrassedly, giving Leo a light push in my direction. "Go on, go to your Mum. She's the one that feeds you, not me--not that you need any more food, of course."

I giggled a bit. "Don't listen to Al, Leo, because he's being stupid. You can have all the snacks you want."

Weight gain, however, soon proved to but one of my family's many worries regarding Leo, for he suddenly started to throw up nearly everything he ate. Mum and Dad, when I told them what was happening, both got very nervous looks on their faces and said that I should get Leo checked out, that he might be sick. I was horrified at the thought; what if something was seriously wrong with Leo, what if he died?

Mum set up an appointment at a veterinary clinic for the following Thursday, which meant I spent three days apprehensively waiting for news. Yet, for the all the worries that Leo's apparent sickness had caused me, it did, at least, manage to fix one issue in my life: Hugo and Céline, out of a shared sympathy for my hardship, once again became friends. With the two of them united in their efforts to cheer me up, I found it hard, even during those painful few days, to be completely depressed.

The two even got a laugh out of me one day. We'd been talking once again about Roger Davies--whom Céline, by this time, was "so over"--and the ongoing drama between him and the twins--he'd left Angelique over the summer for Sophie--when Céline mentioned some article in Witch Weekly magazine.

"Oh, I read that!" Hugo exclaimed.

Céline stared blankly at Hugo for a minute, then asked slowly, "You read the Witch Weekly magazine article 'How Well Do You Know Your Man?'" Hugo nodded uncertainly; he knew he had said something wrong, but he didn't know exactly what that something was. "You read Witch Weekly?" Her eyes met mine, and then we both burst out laughing at the same time. "Oh, Hugo, I've missed you so much."

"Oh, Merlin, I don't even read that magazine, and I'm a witch," I said, gasping for breath all the while, when we'd finally stopped laughing.

"Well," he began, his ears turning a fiery, flaming red, "I don't really read it, but Rose does, and it just happened to be lying around. I figured I'd, you know, give it a try, see what it was like." Céline and I giggled again at his explanation. "Hey, I have an idea!" he exclaimed over our laughter. "Let's go back to talking about Sophie and Angelique. Great plan, right?"

Neither Céline nor I wanted to let our amusement go so easily, but, as Hugo seemed to be genuinely mortified, we gave in. "Fine. Sophie, then. Well, as I was saying, Angelique had invited Roger over, and he found the magazine in her room, so, naturally, he wanted to her to answer the questions. Should have been no problem, right, since they've been dating for half a year?"

"But," I said, "of course, it was a problem."

Céline nodded her head, once again regaining her eagerness to share her news. "Exactly. Angelique couldn't answer one question that the article asked--well, except for his birthday, because she could clearly remember her gift to him, if you know what I mean--"

"No, what do you mean?" Hugo interrupted, grinning playfully.

"Oh, stop it, you!" Céline lightly smacked Hugo's shoulder.

I frowned. "Wait, I actually don't get it." When Céline and Hugo turned to look at me incredulously, I felt like an idiot; I knew I should have kept my mouth shut like I'd been originally intending.

"Ah, Lily, I envy your naivety sometimes." I glared at Céline, but she merely laughed.

"Let me to try to explain it to you," Hugo offered, fighting a fierce battle not to grin. Why did he know and not me? "You see, young Lily, when a man and a woman love each other very much--"

And suddenly I got it. "Oh. Oh. Wow, I hadn't realized that Angelique was…" I let my sentence trail off to nothing. Perhaps this should have been more obvious to me, but I was blown away by the information that I'd just received.

"Yes, well, that's why you're naïve, dear. So, anyway, continuing on, Sophie 'happened'"--Céline finger quoted here--"to be passing by the room, and she was able to answer every single question. Roger dropped Angelique like a hot potato and started snogging Sophie right there in Angelique's room."

"That's incredibly depressing. For Angelique, I mean."

Céline shrugged. "If she knows nothing about her boyfriend, then I'd say she deserves it."

"Well, still," I said, "he didn't have to kiss Sophie right in front of her. He could have at least gone to Sophie's room." I knew I'd hate to see my boyfriend snog my twin sister right in front of me--well, I would if I had a twin sister.

"I have to say I agree with Lily on this," Hugo added, and I smiled at his support.

"I know it's a bit callous, but that's Roger for you--which, yes, is the reason why I don't like him anymore," Céline said, answering my unasked question.

This talk, however much it helped to keep my mind off of Leo for a time, could not soothe my anxiety later that day. I tossed and turned all night, and ended up finally falling asleep on my arm, so that, when I woke up the next morning, it was entirely numb. I panicked for a few moments that I'd have to have my arm amputated--James had once warned Al that, if he woke up with a numb arm, then he'd never be able to use it again--but, once the blood started to flow through my veins freely once again, I quickly regained feeling.

The vet, when my parents and I brought Leo in, spoke little while she examined him. She asked the occasional question, and one of the three of us answered the best that we could, but the atmosphere in the room was too thick with tension for any idle talk.

At last, the vet wrote something down, smiled at the assessment, and turned to face us. "Leo is perfectly fine," she assured us, and I let out a sigh of relief; he'd live to see more than two years of life. "Her weight gain is completely normal, as is her change in personality. All pregnant cats experience such symptoms."

My eyes quickly met Dad's; he looked as shocked as I felt. "But, Leo... he's a boy," I said, utterly confused.

"Leo," the vet disagreed, "is most certainly not a boy."

"He--she--is pregnant?" Dad asked, his jaw dropping. "How is that possible? I mean, I know how, but... well..."

"But we thought Leo was: a) a girl, and b) neutered," Mum finished for Dad, as he seemed incapable of logical speech. "We planned it this way so we wouldn't have little kittens running around our house!"

"You should always double-check these things before you buy a pet," the vet chided, staring disappointedly at us all. "Stores are not fail-proof; they often check for gender early on, when it's still difficult to tell, and never bother to check again. But, if you are set against keeping the kittens--because there isn't anything you can do now to prevent their birth--you can give them up for adoption when they reach a suitable age. It's unadvisable, however, to separate them from their mother while they're still young; you should wait a couple of months before doing so."

"Give them up?" I asked. "Separate them from their fa--mother?" My eyes filled with tears at the thought. "Oh, Mum, we can't! We'll have to keep them."

"We are not going to keep them, Lily," Mum said, shaking her head. "In fact, you're never going to get another pet as long as you live. Right, Harry?"

Dad, however, didn't respond straight away; instead, he looked thoughtfully at Leo for a few moments, then at my heartbroken expression. At last, no doubt to hold at bay the tears threatening to spill from my eyes, he said, "Well, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to keep them. They could, you know, keep us company when the kids go back to Hogwarts."

Mum, this time, was the one to pause. She looked from Dad, to me, to Dad, to me. Then, "I'm going to be overruled in this, aren't I? Beaten down day by day until I myself finally fall in love with the kittens and don't want to give them up?"

"Of course."

"Fine, then," Mum said with a long-suffering sigh, "we can keep them." I positively beamed at her.

Which was how summer soon found our family slaving away to keep my pregnant cat happy. We had to brush her, play with her, feed her special dietary foods, keep her comfortable, etc.; it was a relief when she finally gave birth towards the end of July--or, rather, it was a relief to all of us except Al, because Leo had chosen his bed as her birthing site--to three kittens, named Jinx (James thought this was a great name), Merlin (James wanted to be able to exclaim "By Merlin!" while referring to the cat), and Yellow (sarcastically suggested by Al after he had heard James' contributions).

Most of August passed by in a blur of kitten-related activities; I'd spend hours letting them crawl on me while I drew their progression from newborns to kittens to young cats. Mum, seeing how much I adored them, at one point pulled me aside to remind that this wouldn't happen again; Leo was getting neutered as soon as possible, as were the new kittens. I was only mildly disappointed, because, really, four cats were more than enough for me.

It was during the last few weeks of the summer holidays that I began to hear the Malfoy family--usually an avoided topic--mentioned in our household. The Malfoys held an unusual place in society: they were recognized as having switched to the good side in the war against Voldemort, but they were still subject to the stigma that accompanied all known Death Eaters. With regards to the latter, Malfoy Manor was searched by Aurors every single week of the year to make sure that no one slipped back into practicing Dark magic, that no Dark objects could be found in the house. Draco Malfoy had let this happen with relative passivity for more than two decades--he was waiting patiently for some release to come of its own accord--but, when no sign of end came in sight, he finally snapped and sued the Ministry of Magic for an invasion of privacy.

My family had very mixed feelings about this topic; they supported equal rights in the Wizarding world--especially Auntie Hermione--yet how could they defend a Malfoy? Sure, they argued, Narcissa Malfoy had lied to Voldemort to keep Dad alive, but hadn't that only been out of fear for her son, not out of a compassion for muggleborns? In the end, I was one of the few people who sided with the Malfoys, and the only one who didn't do so reluctantly.

"How can you stand it?" Al asked me one day when Hugo and Rose had both come over. We all knew that our parents we probably discussing the same exact topic. "Supporting the Malfoys like that?"

I shrugged. "They made a mistake in supporting Voldemort, Al, but they changed sides in the end, right? So don't they deserve a second chance?"

"But they didn't believe that they had made a mistake, Lily," Rose said, shaking her head. "They were firmly in favour of eliminating all muggleborns. They supported Voldemort both times that he rose to power, and only switched sides each of these times when Voldemort was about to fall or had already fallen from power, when they knew that their cause was lost for the time."

"That seems more like cowardice to me than ill-intent. And," I continued when Al opened his mouth, cutting off what I knew his response would be, "even if it was ill-intent, why should Scorpius be punished for his parents mistakes? I mean, isn't that what all this really boils down to: Draco doesn't want his son to grow up with weekly inspections hanging over his head?"

"Pfft, Scorpius is enough of an ars--I mean, jerk, that he probably does deserve to have this over his head," Al said.

"I thought you didn't mind Scorpius?" I challenged, crossing my arms. I could clearly remembering him saying that Scorpius Malfoy's only aggravation was the fact that he got better grades than Rose. "That he didn't do anything to particularly annoy you, except perhaps be smart."

"Well, no, he's not a Chase Zabini," Al agreed, "but he still hangs out with Chase Zabini and that crowd, so he can't really be a good guy." I begged to differ with that assumption.

"Besides," Hugo added, "he's in Slytherin, and Dad always tells me that all Slytherins are evil."

"They are not all evil!" I exclaimed, shocked at Hugo's--and Uncle Ron's--small-mindedness. I knew for a fact that Scorpius wasn't evil--or even mean, as his aloofness seemed to indicate--because he'd had plenty of chances to hurt me before now and he hadn't done so. He'd been nicer to me, to tell the truth, than my own best friend Céline had been. Even if he was sarcastic and snarky, at least he didn't get angry with me for no reason.

To my great surprise, Al concurred. "That's true; they aren't all evil. I was named for a Slytherin, after all, and Dad wouldn't have done that if he was evil."

"Still," Hugo said, abashed, "Lily shouldn't be so pro-Malfoy."

"Yes, she does seem to feel very strongly in their favour," Rose commented, eyeing me suspiciously. "I wonder why that is." I said nothing, though I could feel my body tensing. "Perhaps you'd like to enlighten us?"

"It's not that I care about him in particular," I said stiffly, feeling the necessity of at least some explanation. Silence could only make Rose's words worse. "I just feel that everyone should have equal rights, should be given more than one chance. It's just as bad to stereotype someone based on his school House as it is to stereotype someone based on his blood."

"Now, there's a controversial statement." Rose, however, didn't look offended; instead, she nodded her head as if I'd just confirmed her thoughts.

"But, Lily," Al said, "Houses are determined by personality, which you can control to a certain extent, while blood is uncontrollable."

"Another controversial statement." Rose smiled now. "Can someone ever truly control his personality? I mean, sure, it can alter with different experiences in life, but can it ever completely flip? Isn't one really born with a personality?"

I wondered why Rose had switched to argue my side, but I sent her a thankful look nonetheless. "Besides, Houses don't guarantee certain personalities. Look at the spectrum in Gryffindor alone: superficial people like my roommates, studious people like Rose, athletic people like James--"

"Okay, we get the point," Hugo cut me off, rolling his eyes. "But I stick by my words: all Slytherins are bad news."

"That's--"

"Hey, Lily," Rose said suddenly and too loudly, interrupting my exclamation. Hugo, Al, and I turned questioningly towards her. "I have to go to the bathroom. Could you come with me?"

"Again with this?" Hugo demanded, staring at us both as if we were completely daft. "It's, what, five metres away?" I ignored Hugo.

"Sure," I said uncertainly, standing up to follow Rose inside. She led me to my room instead of to the bathroom. "Lily?" she asked, once the door had been shut behind us. "Do you remember the time, right before the Christmas holidays, that you said, 'There is some good in them,' but you wouldn't tell me to what you were referring?"

My throat suddenly felt dry. "Er, yes, I do," I answered nervously. "Why?"

"Did this…" Rose paused, then started again, "Did this have anything to do with Scorpius Malfoy?"

"Maybe," I said neutrally, though the effect was marred by the embarrassed and somewhat guilt-implying heat that had come into my cheeks. Rose said nothing, her face a mask. "Are you… upset?"

Another silence, then a decisive, "No." My eyes widened in shock. "I trust your judgment; if you say he's got some good in him, then I'll believe you."

"He does, Rose," I told her. "He has a lot of good in him. His aloofness is just a facade that he hides behind."

My assurance seemed to cause her an internal struggle--I doubt that she was really expecting me to outright say that--but at last she let out a sigh of acceptance. "Okay. I said I'd believe and I do. Just, er, promise me that you'll be careful with him."

I agreed to her condition eagerly, feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted from my heart. Rose had given me hope that, in the inevitable storm that my friendship with Scorpius would create among all Weasleys and Potters, at least I'd have one ray of sunlight to guide me and support me.


	7. Strange New Reaction

_**Disclaimer**__: I don't own it._

_**A/N:**__ This has only been edited by one of my betas, so it's subject to some changes, but I couldn't stand waiting another day to post it. xDD_

**Chapter 7: Strange New Reaction**

(September 1st-October, Second Year)

I boarded the train for my second year for schooling with no small degree of dread, for I had just recently realized that Priscilla, constant thorn in my side that she was, would be joining me at Hogwarts. As she managed to infuriate me even when we weren't spending every single day within a close proximity of each other, I despaired to think of what would happen if she was sorted into Gryffindor. I'd probably jump off the Astronomy Tower in horror.

Céline, of course, did nothing to alleviate my fears. "Oh, she'll definitely be in Gryffindor," she said decisively when I brought the subject up. "She's got that braveness about her when it comes to enforcing the rules, you know?"

I knew--oh, Merlin, did I know--but I didn't want to admit that. "Nah, she couldn't be a Gryffindor; she's too cowardly to break any authority figure's expectations."

"Maybe Slytherin, then?" Céline offered. "That way she wouldn't annoy either of us. And," she added, grinning at the thought, "our family would be so ashamed that they'd chuck her right out."

"She'd definitely fit in," Hugo agreed, laughing.

"Yeah, Slytherin would be perfect," I lied, though on the inside I was smarting. Having Priscilla in Slytherin, the House I had been denied entry to, would be even worse than having her in Gryffindor. I was in a lose-lose situation either way.

Yet, miraculously, I ended up "winning" in the end. The Sorting Hat had barely touched Priscilla's head before it shouted out, "RAVENCLAW!" in a booming voice. I let out a sigh of relief and heard Hugo do the same on my left, while Céline glared murderously at the Hat. None of us had expected Priss--as we were fond of calling her--to become a Ravenclaw, although the House did fit; Priss did love to read her books and parade her knowledge around

Despite the fact that she had been sorted into a different house than I, however, Priscilla found something reprimand me about with an impressive alacrity; I didn't even make it to breakfast the next morning before she scolded me for "walking too quickly" in the hallways. I wondered just how much of her summer she'd spent memorizing such pointless school rules; did she have no life at all?

Priss' rant against my "incorrigible contempt for school policy"--here was a Prefect in the making if I ever saw one--lasted nearly twenty minutes; I was ravenous by the time I finally sat down at the Gryffindor Table. I'd barely started to chomp away at my breakfast, though, when Céline suddenly slid next to me on the bench.

"Could I just eat here for the rest of my school career? Please?" she begged, glaring in Priscilla's direction. "Because I can't stand to be around her any longer. She's tagging after me and correcting everything I do wrong. 'No, Cel--' Cel, for Merlin's sake!--'Hogwarts doesn't allow that. You shouldn't break rules!'"

I winced at Priscilla's nickname for Céline. "I'm sorry," I said sympathetically, handing her an apple, which she refused. "And, yeah, you can sit here for as long as you want to; no one's going to mind." I took a bite of the apple she had turned down. "As for Priss, well, at least it's only for another six years, right? Six is better than seven, after all."

Céline scrunched up her face in disgust. "Could you swallow before you speak? I couldn't hear a word that you just said. You're as bad as Hugo," she muttered grumpily.

"I am _not_ as bad as Hugo," I replied, taking care to overemphasize my swallow. Here I was being nice to her, and all she could give me in return was grouchiness--though, honestly, I couldn't begrudge her this attitude; she was responding exactly the way that I would have if our positions had been reversed. "And, as I was saying before you insulted me, you're lucky that only have to put up with her for six years and not seven. Imagine what it'd be like if you were her classmate."

Céline shuddered melodramatically. "I'd drop out of Hogwarts and join Beauxbatons. And I'm not joking."

"Aw, it's not that bad," I told her. "You only have to endure her annoyingness until classes start. Once they do, Priss won't have time to follow you around anymore; she'll spend all her free time doing detailed homework assignments and reading ahead in her textbooks."

"She damn well better read her textbooks once classes start, because if I find her reading my magazines again…" Céline grimaced and let her sentence trail to nothing. I stared blankly at her until she explained, "Priss, er, went searching through my stuff yesterday to look for illegal objects--"

"Because you're definitely the type to have illegal objects," I interrupted, laughing at the idea.

"--and," Céline continued as if I hadn't spoken, though she seemed to be fighting a grin, "she found my _Witch Weekly_ collection. Wanted me to lend her a few so that we could discuss fashion and gossip together, but I told her to go to--"

"Aw, Céline, you've found yourself a new best friend!" I teased, giggling again.

"Oh, shut up, Lils," she muttered, rolling her eyes, "or else _you_ won't be my best friend anymore. Speaking of which, I'm going to need you to act as my best friend by holding onto my stash for me until it's safe to take it back, because I can't trust any of my hiding spots to keep her out. She's currently operating under the delusion that what's mine is hers. But, er," Céline added hastily, "I don't mind sharing the magazines with you, because what's mine really is yours. Feel free to read all of the articles that you want to, because I'd be all ears if you discussed them with me." Her expression became expectant.

"I'll try one," I promised her. "I'll read the edition with the 'How Well Do You Know Your Man?' article."

"Ooh, what boy are you going to try it out on?" she asked eagerly.

"No one. I'm just going to read it to see what the questions are like." Which was a lie, of course, but I could hardly tell her that I was going to test my knowledge of Scorpius Malfoy--not that I considered him "my man" or anything. He, er, was simply the only boy whom I was, er, friends with that wasn't a member of my family. It wasn't like I fancied him or anything. What a ridiculous idea, right?

I scored well on the quiz. As in, the only question I didn't know the answer to was: "What is your man's favorite ice cream flavor? Topping?" Which annoyed me for inexplicable reasons--I liked ice cream, but that _that_ much--and made me determined to find out the answer.

I think Scorpius must have forgotten, over the summer, just how enthusiastic I could be--but, in my defense, "enthusiastic" was built-into my personality; I could hardly help it--for he stiffened in shock when I gave him an excited hug and squealed, "Ooh, I missed you!" Clearly he hadn't been expecting such a greeting.

"You missed me?" he repeated, his cheeks turning the slight pinkish color that indicated a blush. "_Why_?"

"Why not?" I demanded. "Didn't you miss me?"

"You? No, absolutely not," he said, shaking his head to stress his words.

I grinned. "You did too miss me, and you know it. Bet you even cried a few times in sorrow," I joked.

"Malfoys don't cry." I laughed at that.

"You're such a liar. Now, tell me," I added before he could argue, "because I've been dying to know, what is your favorite ice cream flavor and topping?"

He blinked. "You think I missed questions like these?" he asked, eyeing me as if I was insane--an assessment that probably had some basis in fact, I'd admit. I nodded my reply. "You are, without a doubt, the oddest person I've ever met. I like… vanilla ice cream?"

"Vanilla?" I repeated, frowning. Could he get any more bland? "No, you need to choose something else--and don't say chocolate!" I warned.

"What's the point of asking me if you're going to deny my answer? I honestly like vanilla the best." I crossed my arms and sighed. Patience might be a virtue, but it was one that I lacked. "What, is your favorite ice cream that much better?" he asked after I huffed in irritation for the third or fourth time.

I couldn't resist answering the question, though I knew it to be rhetorical--a word which Rose had taught me over the summer. "My favorite ice cream is Peanut-Fudge Chocolate Chip, and I like to have it dripping with chocolate sauce and rainbow sprinkles. Ooh, and walnuts!" Scorpius twisted his face with evident distaste, and I wondered whether or not I should take offense at that. "What's wrong with my favorite ice cream?"

"I've got an allergy to nuts," he responded, shrugging. "Anything that involves them repulses me."

"Really?" I asked, shocked. Why hadn't he ever told me this before?

"Why would I lie about that?"

"I didn't think you had actually lied," I muttered, rolling my eyes at his literal interpretation. "All I was doing was expressing my shock. And, aw, that must limit so much of the food you can eat."

"Not at Hogwarts. Haven't you ever noticed how nuts aren't used in school foods?" I shook my head; I wasn't that observant. "Oh, well… they aren't," he finished lamely.

"Huh, that's interesting," I said thoughtfully; I was definitely going to check for that at my next meal. Then, matching fact for fact, "Did you know that house elves cook all the food, and then magically send it up through the ceiling? My Auntie Hermione told me that when she was describing her club to me. It's called 'spew,' I think--or, that's how Dad pronounces it, at least."

"No, I didn't know that," he replied, and I thought I could detect the hints of an amused smile forming on his face. "But it does make sense, because house-elves love to do that sort of thing. I've actually got a house-elf back home who practically cries with joy each time she has to cook us a meal. But, of course, the Ministry of Magic keeps trying to take her away from us; we don't deserve to have servants, they claim." One side of his mouth turned up in a sardonic grin.

"Well--and Auntie Hermione," I added sheepishly, "would hate to hear me say this--I'm sorry that's happening. I think it's rubbish how the Ministry's trying to limit your rights because your Dad and Grandpa made a mistake."

"You do?" he asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

"Of course," I answered. "You family's learned from its mistakes, so why shouldn't you all be given a second chance? I mean, your parents have changed, right?"

"As much as they could," Scorpius replied, shrugging. "But their prejudices are too strong to ever completely vanish. Old habits die hard, as the saying goes." He paused for a moment, then asked, "Why am I telling you this?" The question seemed directed more to himself than me. "A one-word answer would have been enough."

"Because you know how amazingly understanding I am," I responded cheerfully. "And you have trust in our friendship's ability to survive all obstacles."

He snorted at that. "Merlin, how deluded and corny can you get?" His words lacked any real force of insult; in fact, I had the feeling that he was complimenting me in a roundabout way. "It's no wonder that you're a Gryffindor."

That, however, I took insult to. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you belong in Gryffindor," he said slowly, as if I was an idiot for not understanding his meaning before. "You've got the Gryffindor family, the Gryffindor personality, and you'll soon be on the Gryffindor quidditch team. You're a Gryffindor through and through."

My annoyance instantly vanished; I was touched by his confidence that I'd make the team. "You think I'll become Keeper?"

"Well, why wouldn't you? You've got the talent, haven't you?"

I shrugged modestly. "I'm okay on the field. It's always nice to have some support, though."

"Well, er," he said awkwardly, and I had the feeling he had never had to encourage anyone before, "I'm sure you'll make the team very… easily?"

"Thank you!" I chirped happily, reassured more than I perhaps should have been, because he was wrong in the end; I didn't become Gryffindor's Keeper. A tall, hulking seventh-year boy named Alphonsus Howe got the position instead, even though he, Savannah, and I had all saved five goals a piece.

Yet, to tell the truth, I wasn't too devastated by the turn of events--unlike Savannah, who sobbed into Fred's shoulder for a solid two hours after her rejection. I only had to vent to Al once or twice, because, really, I had other, just as enjoyable ways to spend my time as quidditch: drawing, homework, reading _Witch Weekly_'s (which I was more fond of than I would have cared to admit), and more drawing. I only wished that James would realize that, for he refused to stop worrying about my reaction.

"Talk to me, Lily," he pleaded, deaf to all my protests that I was _fine_. "Tell me all about your disappointment."

This was the first time that James' presence ever completely aggravated me. Sure, I might have occasionally wanted him to leave me alone before then, but I'd never wanted him to just completely go away as I did now, for his constant, hovering presence interfered with my attempts to talk to Scorpius. I figured that, with all of my newfound free time, I'd be able to help with the Malfoys' trial--though, since I was only a second year, I knew that he wouldn't have much use for me--but I couldn't very well offer my services when James was there to watch me like a hawk.

James continued to annoy me throughout October, until I finally became so annoyed with him that I cast accidental magic--on myself, of course, because even in an entirely instinctive state my body was daft--and ended up blowing off part of my leg. Literally. I had to stay three nights in the Hospital Wing before it finally grew back; I was ready to die of boredom by the end of the first.

Rose came to visit me during my second day there, a newspaper clipping held angrily in her hand. "Read this," she muttered, shoving the article towards me. The heading read: "MALFOYS FIGHT BACK." Intrigued, I read the following paragraphs.

"_The lawsuit of Draco Malfoy, 40, heir to the largest fortune in the Wizarding world, against the Ministry of Magic soured yesterday evening as Malfoy, smarting from a dismal first day of prosecution, turned to a new and shocking tactic to gain back his infringed rights: introducing the controversial topic of half-breeds and non-human creatures._

"'_The majority of werewolves, vampires, giants, and other magical beings,' he boldly stated to the assembled Wizengamot jury, 'were supporters of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named during his war to purge the magical world of muggleborns, yet they face no punishment for their past mistakes. In fact, in the years since the war has ended, these creatures have gained _more_ rights from the Ministry of Magic than they ever had before. All I ask for here and now is to be given the same consideration; all I ask is that my family's misdeeds to be forgiven, if not forgotten.'_

"_Malfoy's arguments raised the uncomfortable, but necessary truth that the most dangerous of Voldemort's supporters have gotten off with little punishment whatsoever. Wizardfolk have spent so much of their time repairing this broken world that they forgot to punish those responsible for the rupture in the first place. Many half-breeds deserve to be rotting away with their fellow Death Eaters in Azkaban, or to be living limited lives (much more so than the Malfoys do, to be sure) for the roles that they played in the war, yet nearly all walk free._

"_Only one non-human currently is held in Azkaban's grip: Fenrir Greyback, the notorious werewolf murderer who was known to purposely attack young children while transformed. Greyback even, during the height of Voldemort's second reign, began to claw and bite humans when he was _not_ transformed. If one werewolf is capable of such atrocities, who's to say that others are not, as well?_

"_And werewolves aren't the Wizarding world's only problem, either. Vampires and banshees have also largely been left alone by witches and wizards since the fall of You-Know-Who, with the dreadful result of a population increase for both species. Rumors have even begun to form that select groups of vampires have attempted to teach themselves to cast magic using wands, although the Ministry declines to comment on the matter. These dangerous creatures clearly are starting to bite the hand that feeds them, as the saying goes, and Malfoy understands this fact better than most. One can only hope that, during the next few days of the proceedings, he enlightens all others to what should be the world's number one problem, and spurs them into action against it._"

"Scorpius Malfoy," Rose said in a stiff, cold voice when I had finished reading, "does not have any good in him; no one in his family does." I had no response to give her, for my mind was having difficulty processing what I'd just read. How could Scorpius' father say such a thing? "His father has blatantly tried, in the course of one day, to dismantle all of the progress wizards have made in overcoming their prejudices against non-humans."

"I-I'll talk to him, see what--" I began, but Rose cut me off.

"You mostly certainly will not talk to him." Her voice was calm, but her scarlet ears betrayed volumes of her anger. "Not even you can defend him now. If you do, he must have you bewitched or something."

"He doesn't have me bewitched," I replied on instinct, and Rose frowned. "But, er, I won't see him anymore if you don't want me to." Arguing, I knew, would be the biggest mistake I could possibly make at this moment.

Rose seemed relieved. "Good, good. I was," she confessed, "afraid you'd be illogical about this, but you're taking it so well."

Her words made me feel a little guilty, because I was planning on having one last conversation with Scorpius before I cut him out of my life. I wanted to know what his family--and especially his father--had been thinking when they'd brought non-humans and half-humans into their case. After that, though, I would ice him out just as Rose wanted me to.

It wasn't hard to find Scorpius; he came to visit me that night--after visiting hours were over, I might add--to see how I was feeling. His concern was so sweet that I almost lost the anger he had inspired in me. Almost.

"Bad," I responded to his question. Then, "And not because my leg hurts--I mean, it does, but that's beside the point--but because of this." I shoved the newspaper into his hands. "What do you have to say about it?"

He read what the author--Callisto Aquinas--had written with an ever deepening scowl. "This is a load of rubbish, of course."

"Oh, really? Because she has a quote from your dad in there that quite clearly reveals his support of the article's message. Are you trying to deny what she claims that he said?" A part of me, no matter how firmly I tried to hold it in check, was optimistic that he'd somehow do just that.

"No, he did say that," Scorpius admitted with a sigh, and the last shred of hope I'd had for our friendship died right then and there. I turned my head to the side because I couldn't bear to look at him anymore. "But that quote is taken entirely out of context," Scorpius added, his voice slightly rushed. If I didn't know any better, I would have said that he was desperate to be heard.

"Taken out of context?" I repeated doubtfully, though he had succeeded in getting me to face him again. "How so?"

"Father only said that to point out how forgiving the world can be," Scorpius assured me, and he seemed comforted to a small extent by the fact that I was willing to listen to him. "He wanted to be given the same privileges as half-bre--half-humans." Despite his efforts to hide the slipup, I caught it, and it made me cringe. The word "half-breed" sounded so derogatory, even filthy. "He didn't want their privileges to be taken away."

"He had no idea that Callisto Aquinas would write such a nasty article?" I asked.

"Of course not! He's, er, all for the rights of magical creatures." I stared at Scorpius with disbelief written all over my face, and he sheepishly corrected himself, "Well, maybe he's not a huge supporter of their cause, but he's not _against_ them, at least. He's not about to make the same mistake with half-b--half-humans that he made with muggleborns."

"And what about you? Are you prejudiced against them?" This question was the one that really mattered to me; I didn't care if his father was a bigoted git as long as Scorpius wasn't.

"No," he immediately and forcefully replied. "Lily, you have to believe me on this. I'm not biased against magical, non-human creatures." I said nothing. "Pl--" he began, but broke off with a wince. Then, as if it took all of his willpower to overcome his pride and do so, "Please, Lily. Please believe me."

It was his "please" that did it for me--made me once again trust him, I mean. I'm not sure that anything else would have worked. But, the minute he said that word--and it was amazing how magical "please" really did sound coming from his mouth--I was sold. He had to have some good in him if he was willing to beg for our friendship; he had to be capable of caring. "Does this mean that we're friends?" I asked, my lips curving slightly.

Scorpius smiled--and I mean _really_ smiled--for the very first time in my presence. I was amazed at the change in wrought in his appearance; he no longer looked at all aloof or distant, but instead appeared… friendly. "Unfortunately, I think it does."

"You couldn't resist my natural charms any longer?"

"Or your modesty," he said without missing a beat, and I laughed. My heart felt at ease once again, even though I knew that it shouldn't have. I had, after all, disobeyed the one order that Rose had given me; shouldn't I have been more wracked by guilt than I was?

Maybe, I decided, concerned with my lack of remorse, it would be better to _not_ over-think my emotions. "So, did you come rushing straight away to see me when you found out I was hurt?" I teased lightly in a (successful) attempt to force myself to forget these worries.

"I did come rushing, as a matter of fact." I blinked at him in surprised, until he added, with a smirk, "On my white stallion, even. Although, with so many people surrounding you, I could not allow myself to enter, for not even I could emerge victorious in a duel against so many foes." I was impressed at how "knightly" he had made that sentence sound.

"You still should have challenged them all," I mock-chided, feigning deep displeasure. "A true knight would have done so."

"Which is the reason I'm not a true knight, m'lady." I giggled at the address. "Slytherins, unlike idiot Gryffindors, know better than to engage in battles they can't win."

I coughed pointedly. "You wouldn't, by any chance, be implying that I'm also an idiot, would you?"

"No, you're the exception to the rule, because you have enough sense to at least spend time with a Slytherin," he said pompously, and I snorted. "How feminine of you, Lily."

"Shut up," I muttered, blushing. My brother's bad influence was finally starting to evince itself. "And you can call me 'Lils' now that you've admitted we're friend. Ooh, and I can call you 'Scorp!' Or 'Scor!' Or--"

"Or 'Scorpius,'" he finished for me with mock excitement. "I think that's a great nickname!"

"What, none of your friends shorten your name?" I asked, not buying that for a second. "Scorpius" was, after all, quite a mouthful to say.

"Not if they want to live, no."

"Pfft, you don't need to keep up the tough-guy persona in front of me," I told him as I rolled my eyes. "You're not going to fool me into believing it."

He raised an eyebrow. "You think this is an act, _Lils_?" My heart skipped a beat in joy when I heard him use my nickname, and I wondered why I'd had such an odd reaction. "Because it definitely isn't. I'm just naturally a tough-guy; I can't even help it anymore."

"I _know_ it's an act," I said in an attempt to be flippant, but the effect was marred by the lingering confusion I felt at my body's response to him. I'd heard people call me "Lils" hundreds of times in my life, so why should this one instance effect me so much? I was utterly perplexed.

"Psh, you don't know anything," he teased, pretending to brush away my opinions with a flick of his wrist. "You'd have to see me with my friends to know just how strong and--" He paused, evidently trying to think of a good enough word to describe himself.

"And rugged," I supplied for him with a grin.

"--and rugged I am," he agreed.

"Ooh, so should I ask all of your Slytherins friends about you?"

"There's no point in doing so," Scorpius assured me. "They'd support everything that I've said. But, er," he added, his tone no longer playful, "don't really ask the Slytherins; they're not all as--" he searched for the right word--"_open_ as I am."

"I think I could handle myself," I told him, but he shook his head.

"No, they're a pretty rowdy bunch, Lily; none of them would care if they hurt you. It's really better for the both of us if you just, er, stay away from them."

"The both of us?" I repeated, and he shrugged.

"Well, you wouldn't want me to have to fight them in a duel, now would you?" he asked, and my heart once again paused for a couple of seconds as I processed his meaning, his desire to protect me. "Because I'd have to if they hurt you, you know. Defend your honor and all that."

I positively beamed at him.


	8. Secrets Revealed

****

Disclaimer: I don't own it.

Chapter 8: Secrets Revealed

(October- Christmas Holidays, Second Year)

I was reluctant to leave the Hospital Wing when Madame Longbottom announced that I was free to go. Not because my leg still felt uncomfortable and sore--although, truth be told, it did--but because I knew I'd face hell from Hugo once he saw that I was fine. The protection from his mockery that my injury had once given me was now gone.

Sure enough, and within twenty minutes of my departure from the Hospital Wing, I was all but mauled by Hugo, who hastily demanded, "So, tell me again, how exactly did you manage to blow off your entire leg?"

"Your concern for my welfare is touching, Hugo," I muttered dryly, though I could feel an embarrassed heat rising in my face. "Really, it just warms my heart."

"Your welfare is fine, or Madame Longbottom wouldn't've let you leave," Hugo said with a dismissive wave of his hand. Annoyed at his lack of sensitivity--sure, I expected it, but I still didn't _enjoy_ it--I almost corrected his grammatical mistakes, until I realized how Rose- or Céline-like that would be. "Was your leg completely severed from your body?"

The thought alone was unpleasant enough to make me scrunch up my face in disgust. "Merlin, Hugo, what kind of question is that? I don't know. I had other things to worry about, you know?"

"Ah, c'mon, you must've heard _something_," Hugo urged me. "Just nod or shake your head. I'll keep bugging you until you tell me." And, since I knew he really wouldn't leave me alone until I answered, I nodded mutely. "So your leg was left on the floor?" I winced my confirmation, and he laughed. "What did they do with it?"

I groaned, mortified, and buried my face in my arms. "Ugh, I don't want to think about the answer to that, Hugo! Not at all!" I exclaimed, my voice muffled by the fabric of my robes. Why did the situation sound all the worse coming from his mouth? "It's 'vomit girl' all over again."

"Not 'vomit girl,'" he gleefully corrected me, "but 'legless girl.'"

I slowly and disbelievingly raised my head. "'Legless girl?'" I repeated, rolling my eyes. "You had hundreds of nicknames to chose from, and you settled on _that_. How uncreative can you get?"

His ears turned a slight pink, but his grin became more playful. "You know, we're supposed to be teasing you, Lils, not me."

"Yeah, well, I think we've just about exhausted every way to possibly ridicule me. It's time that we move on to you--or anything else," I offered. "I'm not picky."

Hugo shrugged good-naturedly. "Okay, we'll talk about something else," he said. "You've already told me everything I need to know." I grimaced, because I knew he was picturing the scene over and over again in his mind like a movie on repeat. "How about we discuss--and this," he added confidentially, as if what he was about to impart was of the highest import, "has been weighing on my mind for a while--the weirdness that makes people associate colors with school subjects."

I blinked in surprise, having expected something a bit more, well, secretive. "You've been thinking about this for a while? _Why_?"

"Well, it's strange, isn't it? I mean," he continued, "when I think of Herbology, green immediately pops into my head."

"Herbology involves plants, and plants are usually green. It's sort of an obvious link."

"But, what about DADA?" he asked. "I think of black--or red. How do you describe that?"

"Black is evil? I don't know." I paused, and then, unable to help myself--such completely random topics always drew my interest--I added, "I think of purple, though."

Hugo snorted at my choice. "Purple? It's not exactly an intimidating color, is it?"

"What are you talking about? It's definitely an intimidating color." My voice came out sounding more defensive than I'd intended. "It's even more intimidating than black--"

"_Nothing_ is more intimidating than black."

"--because it's all mystical and ominous," I continued, ignoring Hugo's interruption. "I mean, in Potions, when your cauldron emits purple fumes, it's usually not a good thing, right? Doesn't that almost always mean your potion is poisonous?"

"Er, I don't actually know, so I'll take your word for it," Hugo said, shrugging again. "Potions isn't my forte."

"Well, it's not exactly mine, either, but that's what Céline once told me." And that, in my mind, automatically made the generalization true. "So, since purple's poisonous, it's more dangerous than black, ergo it's more intimidating, as well." I was almost positive that my argument had made no sense whatsoever, but Hugo mock-clapped for me all the same. I laughingly bowed in reply.

"Speaking of which--" Hugo began once we'd finished with this little show of ours, but I cut him off before he could finish.

"This is, I take it, going to be completely random?" I joked.

"Oh, haha, very funny," Hugo said sarcastically, though the effect was marred by his not-entirely-suppressed laugh. "But, it really is a speaking of which. You were talking about Céline earlier, and this has to do with Céline."

"I'm impressed."

Hugo stuck his tongue out. "You're annoying, that's what you are. I shouldn't even give you the message now--I wouldn't, really, if Céline hadn't been the one to ask--but here it is: she needs to see you immediately. She has a get-well present--and Merlin knows why she had to wait until after you were already well to give it to you. I'll never understand girls, I swear--that you 'absolutely need--'" he even inserted air quotes--"to have. She claims it's even better than _Witch Weekly_." His expression was doubtful, as if nothing could possibly be better than a copy of _Witch Weekly_; I was inclined to agree with him--in terms of reading material, at least.

I sought Céline out later that day, and, when I found her, I immediately understood why she had waited: her present to me was a trashy, overly-romantic pirate novel full to the brim with such cheesy innuendoes that it made me wince. There was no way Madame Longbottom would ever allow it in her Hospital Wing; I certainly was embarrassed to call it my own.

I wondered where she'd even gotten it from in the first place--we were only twelve, after all, and the book had quite the abundance of steamy scenes--but she refused to enlighten me, just as she refused to listen to all my protests that she was being too "kind." I had no choice but to accept the gift.

"Promise me that you'll finish it before the end of the year," Céline insisted after I had shoved the book to the bottom of my bag, intending to never look at it again. "Promise me, or I'll never forgive you."

"Fine, I promise," I reluctantly agreed, hoping against hope that, given enough time, she'd forget my vow--and that I would, too.

I left Céline's gift underneath all of my textbooks as October slowly faded into November, although I never quite forgot about it. There was nothing else, really, for me to think about, because the days of November all meshed together into a blend of monotony and boredom; nothing reached my ears about the Malfoy case--and I could never bring myself to ask Scorpius--nor about anti-halfhuman sentiments in the general Wizarding world.

That's not to say that I had no worthwhile conversations with Scorpius--whom I'd recently taken to calling "Scor." He hated this nickname at first, until I threatened to call him "Orpius" or "Pius" (I was, at least, going to give him a choice), which shut him right up--of course. As the holidays drew ever closer, my talks with him had the tendency to break the ennui of my life and put me in a lasting, cheerful mood.

"Do you want me to get you a Christmas present?" he asked awkwardly one night as we stole into a secluded section of the library. The first snowfall of the season had just begun, and we were taking advantage of the distraction to have our first conversation in days.

"If you want to," I told him neutrally, but, on the inside, my heart was skipping joyfully at the notion. These instinctive reactions of mine were becoming more and more common, and I could no longer pass them off as a fluke. They made me feel pleasant enough--more than pleasant enough, if I were to tell the truth--but I was starting to become annoyed at their persistence. "I'll probably get you one."

"Then I'll get you one, too." He paused for a moment, then asked, "Er, what would you like? The potato idea was my one burst of creativity, and not even a very good one at that."

"What are you talking about? It was the perfect gift," I immediately assured him, because, well, it _was_. "As for what to get me, I have no idea. Anything you have to give is fine."

"That's so useful, Lils. Makes everything so much easier," he said sarcastically. "No one ever likes every gift they receive; I definitely don't. So, for me--and this," he added with overly-done enthusiasm, "is me being helpful; you should try it sometime--I'd like--"

"I've already figured out what I'm going to get you," I interrupted, grinning. "Don't even worry about it." I was planning on giving him a suit of armor--and I do mean a genuine, historical suit of armor--for being such a "chivalrous" knight (Merlin knew _where_ I'd be able to find one, of course); I was sure that he'd appreciate the randomness, if only because he so rarely was exposed to it normally.

"Should I be afraid?"

"Nah, it's not the talking, moving, walking type." An assurance which, rather than comforting him, seemed only to worry him more.

"But it _can_ talk, walk--whatever--ordinarily?" he demanded. "Bloody hell, it's not a dog or something, is it? Because I hate animals."

"First of all--" I held up one finger--"my gift is not a dog, nor can dogs talk. Second of all, how in the world can you hate animals? We're definitely going to have to fix that. And, c --"

"You mean, 'third of all,'" he corrected me with a smirk.

I rolled my eyes at his nit-picking. "Yes, that's what I meant. _Third of all_, this type physically cannot do anything but just sort of sit there and wait to be used. I swear that you've got nothing to fear--and, really," I asked, "would I lie to you?"

He relaxed at that. "I suppose not. But, even if you managed to come up with this gift all on your own," he said, "I still need you to give me some idea of what to get you for Christmas."

"Get me an… umbrella," I replied, saying the first thing that came to mind. His unconvinced expression made me reconsider. "A toothpick?" He shook his head. "How about…" I trailed off thoughtfully, until I decided on both an thrilling and terrifying idea. "Well, okay, I do have something," I finally said, my voice soft and hesitant. I could hardly believe that I was going to admit this out loud. "I want… art supplies."

"Art supplies?" he repeated skeptically, as if this reluctant confession of mine was a lie. I fought the urge to glare at his doubt. "Why?"

"Because I, er, like to--" I braced myself for the agony I'd always associated with this admission, the loss of my secret--"like to draw," I admitted. The words were hard to get out, but, once they'd been laid in the open, they were surprisingly painless. Instead of regret, I felt an excitement--a nervous and anxious one, yes, but an excitement nonetheless--to tell him more. "No, I _love_ to draw."

He blinked at me. "Since when?" he asked, confused.

"Since I was six and my childhood best friend died," I told him, a heavy weight--one that I'd almost forgotten that I'd been carrying--lifting from my chest. "Drawing was a way for me to escape this world, to lose my worries for a time. I never told anyone about it, though; I was afraid that, if I did, it would no longer be my escape, or that one of my cousins would try to upstage me in talent."

"I see," he said simply, but I could tell that he really did see. Maybe that's why I was ready to talk about my hobby with him and not my family: I knew that he would understand. "So, who was the first person you ever told?"

"You." He looked taken aback, but pleased that I trusted him. "You're the first person I've ever told."

"A secret for a secret, then?" And, seeing my confused look, he clarified, "Should I tell you one of my secrets, as well?" Even though I definitely did want to hear one of his secrets, I shrugged; I didn't want him to feel forced into telling me. "Okay, I will." He took a deep breath to prepare himself for the plunge. "I have a fascination with History of Magic. I complain all the time about Professor Binns' class and the uselessness of what he has to teach, but I actually love to hear what he has to say."

I giggled. "Aw, Scor, that's absolutely adorable."

"Shut up." A smile spread slowly, but surely across his face; I hoped that meant that he, too, had felt the relief of a burden disappearing. "Yours is just as 'adorable.'"

"I know, we've both just utterly embarrassed ourselves in front of each other. But," I added with mock sternness, "we have to pinky swear that we won't ever share these embarrassments with anyone else. Make it official and all, you know?"

"What in the bloody hell is a pinky swear?"

"It's like the muggle version of the Unforgivable Vow, only it's bound on honor, not magic," I explained, and he snorted at the concept. "We link pinkies, make our promise not to tell anyone else these secrets, and kiss our thumbs."

"And this is a common practice?" he asked, amused. "People often bound themselves on _honor_?" I frowned at the wry way he said the word "honor," as if such a quality could not possibly exist in a person; how pessimistic could he get?

"Not everyone lies and cheats all the time, you know? For some people, honor is incentive enough to keep a promise."

"For you, maybe, because you're… you." I wondered if that was meant to be a compliment or an insult. "But, for almost everyone else? Not such a binding incentive."

"Well, will it be binding enough for you?"

He paused for a moment, then nodded his head surely. "Yes, I think so." He entwined his pinky with mine in an air of mock solemnity; my skin tingled at the contact. "I promise not to tell anyone else that you love to draw."

"I promise not to tell anyone that you love History of Magic." We both kissed the back of our respective thumbs. "Or that you've got the hots for Professor Binns," I added teasingly when he had let go of my hand (I could still feel his touch, gentle and warm).

"Cheers, Lils."

I returned to Gryffindor Tower light of heart, still smiling from my talk with Scor, and found Rose waiting eagerly in the Common Room. I worried, for a few seconds, that she was going to demand where I'd been--or that she already knew, and was going to reprimand me severely for it--but she did nothing of the sort. Instead, she pulled me aside and revealed, under the strictest of confidences, that she had been asked out by a cute Ravenclaw fifth-year and had said yes.

Neither of us had ever been too knowledgeable on the latest fashions in the Wizarding world--which potions would make one's hair the silkiest and shiniest, which make-up spells look the most alluring, etc.--so the (lasting) changes this boy, Demetrius Berkeley, wrought in Rose were all the more noticeable. She suddenly transformed from a reclusive, strict wallflower into a pretty, outgoing, and all-around popular blossom, and she was all the nicer for it. Sure, she was still her usual overachiever self, but at least she no longer attempted to force everyone else to live up to those expectations. I even began to suspect that Rose was breaking a few school rules--such as curfew--to see Demetrius during this time period.

Yet, while these differences were appreciated by almost everyone at Hogwarts, her parents--or, rather, Uncle Ron, because Auntie Hermione was surprisingly blasé about the matter--were horrified. Rose was, Uncle Ron claimed, much too popular for her own good, and much too young to "sexify"--I blushed on Rose's behalf when I heard him invent this word--herself thus. When he found out the changes were for a _boy_, however, and not just for herself, he flew even more off the handle and threatened to pull Rose straight out of school until she learned to control her "promiscuity." Auntie Hermione entered the argument at that point, with Hugo joining in shortly afterwards.

Dad took this--the fact that ever single one of them was shouting--as a sign that it was time for our family to return home, but he had difficulty shepherding Mum to the fireplace. "Is it sadistic that I love to watch them fight?" she asked, craning her neck to glance back at them, and Dad laughed. "It's like a train wreck: you want to look away, but you just can't."

Dad, amused as he was while watching Uncle Ron deal with Rose, became serious once we'd arrived back home, and pulled me to the side to "lay down the law." I wasn't allowed to date until I was thirty-five or married, whichever came last--a stipulation which, after many protests, he finally changed to whichever came first, as if that was somehow better. It took all of my self-control not to repeatedly roll my eyes.

Mum, when she found out about my conversation with Dad, told me to ignore him ("He's being a git, Lils. You can date whenever you feel ready"). She knew what it felt like to be limited by male family members in the relationship department, and she wasn't about to let me experience the same treatment.

The holidays passed by pleasantly enough, until Dad--and, by extension, the rest of us--was given an invitation to attend Christmas Eve dinner at his cousin Dudley's house. This had only happened twice before--our families had been on each other's Christmas card for as long as I could remember--and I hated going there, where his prim and proper wife glared at me as if I was an unpleasant bug she longed to squish but couldn't--I talked too much, she'd often complain to "Uncle" Dudley when she thought I wasn't listening; it was unnatural--but I hardly had a choice in the matter. Attendance was mandatory, not optional.

Christmas dawned perfect and cheerful, full of delicious meals and thoughtful presents, but the next day was much less enjoyable. The owl carrying our copy of the _Daily Prophet_ arrived bright and early, carrying an article in its beak--"CAUGHT: VAMPIRES PRACTICING MAGIC IN ALBANIA"--that cast a dreary light over the end of holidays. Apparently, Callisto Aquinas had not vented out her prejudices thoroughly enough the first time around; she'd been lying patiently in wait for another opportunity to do so.

"_The _Daily Prophet_ has recently received shocking insider information. A colony of vampires in Albania have broken with the international wizarding law which states that no non-human magical being may bear a wand by teaching themselves to perform magic. Employees from the Albanian Ministry of Magic quickly dispersed the group, all of whom will stand before the Albanian High Court in the near future on charges of treason against order and justice, and confiscated their wands, but fear remains yet in the world._

"_Rumors of such vampire activity have long been prevalent in the Wizarding world--see previous editions of the _Daily Prophet_--and here, finally, is the clear-cut proof of their verity. No longer can witches and wizards deny the fact that vampires, and magical creatures in general, have become increasingly subversive; the evidence is irrefutable. With such doubts eliminated, the time has now come to take action before it is too late, before this problem snowballs out of our control. We have no reason to wait any longer._

"_The Ministry of Magic, of course, insists that the issue is either nonexistent or well under control, but what has it done to prove this? Has it orchestrated a grand-scale search of all vampires--and other magical beings, as well, for the sake of safety--to alleviate any fears witches and wizards might have of a possible coup-d'é tat? Has it imposed harsher regulation on the purchase of wands to make sure non-humans cannot get their hands on wands again? Has it even alerted the masses to the dangers they might be in so that they might keep a protective eye out?_

"_The answer, naturally, is no; the Ministry of Magic has done none of the above. It has kept an entirely too secretive stance on this matter--when, exactly, was it planning on informing the larger wizarding community about these treacherous Albanian vampires?--and it does not seem likely that this will change in the near future, not unless the people give the Ministry a gentle, but unyieldingly firm push in the proper direction. The Ministry has already proven once that it has the tendency to ignore serious threats--think He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named--so the average witches and wizards _need_ to stand together to prevent our world from falling apart again. Who knows what might happen if no pro-active action is taken? How many will suffer the ghastly consequences?_"

The article was short and not nearly as powerful as her first one--I had the sense that she'd rushed to get this out before the Christmas season ended, though why she'd want to ruin Christmas I had no idea--but it still made me angrier than I had ever been in my life. My teeth were clenched so tightly together while I read that I was shocked they didn't break.

"Lily," Al said when I'd finally finished, "can I talk to you for a moment? Privately?" James shot Al a grim look, but Al refused to meet his eyes.

"Er, sure?" I allowed myself to be lead to Al's room, disgusting mess that it was (had he never heard of a washing machine? Or an air freshener?), with only a mild amount of impatience.

"You," he began, once he'd shut the door behind us, "cannot tell anyone else--except for Céline and Hugo, I suppose--about this. It's a life-and-death type of secret." Which blew my mind, because this was, what, the third deepest and darkest I'd been exposed to in less than a month? What was going on?

"I swear I won't tell anyone but them," I assured him, and he nodded.

"I know you won't. Okay, well, you know how the Aquinas article mentions how maybe there are vampires learning magic in England, too?" he asked. "It's telling the truth; there are. Hagrid's the one teaching them."

I could only blink at him in confusion. "What?"

"Hagrid's been going into the Forbidden Forest every few nights to show the vampires how to perform simple magic," he clarified. "Nothing too complex, because Hagrid himself isn't too great at performing complex spells, but it's magic nonetheless."

"Do Mum and Dad know?" Al shook his head. "So why has he told _you_ this?" Having adults in the know, after all, was safer than having children.

"He wants Rose, James, Fred, and I to teach the more complex stuff when we get older. I was doubtful about agreeing at first," Al admitted, "but he took us to meet them once--the only time we've seen them so far--and they're a surprisingly normal bunch. If you ignore their intensely pale skin and reddish eyes, they can easily pass for just another group of school-aged wizards. I mean, they don't even suck blood, because that's Hagrid's condition for instructing them."

I tried (unsuccessfully) to raise an eyebrow; I'd not yet learned about vampires in Defense Against the Dark Arts class, but I was almost certain that drinking blood was necessary to their survival. "Er, they don't need blood to live?"

"To live forever, but not to live in general," Al explained. "They stop aging if they drink human blood--some chemical in their bodies breaks down the blood and uses it to halt the aging process--and that's the reason why most keep the habit up--well, that and the fact that there's always an aching in their bodies whenever they haven't drunk blood; they can feel themselves growing with a more painful acuteness than humans can."

His information was so specifically and knowledgably given that I asked, "Rose?"

Al grinned. "Er, yeah, it was the speech she gave me the first time we found out about the vampires. I was amazed at how eagerly she consented to help Hagrid, considering how this breaks about a hundred laws and all, but she never had any qualms. Must be Auntie Hermione's influence."

The irony that the four of them were easily willing to place trust in vampires, but never in Slytherins did not escape me--I wondered how they could be so blatantly hypocritical--but I remained silent about the matter. I wanted to be a part of what they were doing too much to risk angering them. "So, how can I help?"

"By keeping our lessons--which we're starting next term--up when we leave Hogwarts. You don't have to do anything big for another couple of years." I opened my mouth, and Al hastily amended, "You _can't_ do anything for another couple of years. I know that they're supposed to be good and all, but it's still dangerous, and you're too young to deal with that danger yet."

"That's not--"

"It is true, and you know it. You three can still meet them and talk to them, but you're not to seek them out when James, Rose, Fred, or I aren't there. Agreed?"

I huffed loudly. "Fine. But you have to promise," I insisted, because it really wasn't fair if I was the only one to make a concession, "in turn, to take me--sorry, _us_--to see them as soon as we get back."

"As long as Hagrid says that it's okay, then, yes, I promise we, or at least I, will take you."

I couldn't wait to return to school again; I had no idea just what I was getting myself into.

---

****

A/N: Unfortunately, I won't have time to write more of this until Friday, or possibly even next Monday, so the next update might take a week and a half to two weeks. Sorry! 

Also, just for clarification, I added in the visiting Dudley part because JK recently updated her website to say that Dudley and Harry were semi-close now--they would send each other Christmas cards and sometimes visit (visits which were "dreaded" by the Potter children)--so I thought it'd be fun to add in. ;)


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